Inertia Overcome
by Avari20
Summary: It all started with a train. Caroline overcame the inertia holding her down in Mystic Falls and began a new, sometimes scary journey into the unknown. But Klaus was never really far behind, and when he caught up, Caroline discovered just how drastically life could be altered.AU after Tyler leaves town. Romance, Angst, One-shot turned Multi-fic
1. Inertia Overcome

**Disclaimer: I don't own the characters of The Vampire Diaries.**

**Dedication: To Sara, may happy times always find you.**

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Can vampires outrun trains?

I've seen some pretty amazing things in my life- the undead half of it, anyway. The first part was relatively normal. The kind of beautiful that you can't or don't appreciate until the moment passes. There were some instances that stuck with me, things like stars on the night of a blackout, or the way water ripples in a stream when you stick your foot in it. Sometimes it's hard to remember ordinary beauty like that matters in comparison to hybrids and werewolves and witches and Originals.

Oddly enough, it's the ordinary that landed me on this train.

Tyler was and is gone. He's been gone for months. A lot of long wretched days. At first I tried desperately to think of a way to get around it. Scheme after scheme after half-baked idea came up and then landed in the trash pile. I think it was denial. Actually, I'm almost certain it was. Trying to save my boyfriend from an Original's hit list was like trying to get out of the mob and then going on a television show about it. My days of tricking and distracting were done; not only was my target wise to it, but I just didn't have that kind of heart anymore. Some things wear you down.

I refused to sink into depression, though, even when I felt my fingertips slip from the ledge that was calm. I decided to point my middle finger at the supernatural drama for a day and went to do the most ordinary thing I could think of.

I went to the movies.

I can't remember the title of the movie-I'm pretty bad like that-but it was about a girl in the 50s. At one point in the movie, she bought a ticket at the station and hopped on a train on a whim. I thought, "That's pretty gutsy. Wish there were more trains these days. Wonder if vampires can outrun trains?"

I can't say how the idea blossomed from a stray thought. Maybe it was watered by desperation. Maybe I was just tired of living the same life in the same endless cycle of futility. But the idea wouldn't go away.

Can vampires outrun trains?

More to the point-can Originals?

I sat in the dark theater, staring at the filmed scenery rolling by in the window's reflection, totally gripped by the possibilities. Part of me was scared. This was pushing it. This was the final straw on the camel's back. Yet...he always had me on his radar because I stayed where he could see me. What if I didn't? What if I just...left?

It was a dangerous idea. I'd be starting over. Somehow that seemed crazier than tempting an Original with a deadly bite. I had to ask myself if that wouldn't just send him looking harder for Tyler. Then it occurred to me that he was already looking. Why not distract him? Why not run and divide his attention?

Would he come after me?

I didn't have an answer. Faced with the choice of taking a chance and succeeding or sitting still and spinning my wheels, though, I knew what I had to do. Running meant running for a long, long time, but better to keep busy running than stagnating.

Like Yoda said-Do or do not. There is no try.

Funny. That's the only thing I remember from all of Tyler's secret stash of nerdy posters.

Turns out there are plenty of train stations in Virginia. Just not near me. I outlined the plan to my mom piece by piece, mostly scribbled on scraps of notes that I burned on scented candles. God, I'll miss her. She got me as much money as she could in cash. We didn't know if he was watching or not. So I started making some out of town trips overnight. Then one night I met up with a contact in another city and he drove me to a train station two more cities over.

Here I am, sitting on my very first train with a ticket stamped for the farthest destination. Dawn is creeping up in the sky. The black bleeding into pink is like the biggest timer on earth for me right now. There are about five million transfers to be made and a mind-numbing lot of hours between here and my "stop". I don't know if I'm going to the final mark on the map. More than likely I'll get off someplace else. Somewhere nice. I'll get a job. I don't think my experience as Miss Mystic Falls or chair of the one hundred and one committees I led will help. I've got a new name now. Terra Yates. I'll have to practice introducing myself; my blood freezes a little when I think about it sometimes. Seriously, though? My blood's been running cold since I thought of this. It's crazy. It's nuts. It's new. I'll be nobody. I'm taking a chance on the level of a reconstructed Titanic voyage.

And you know what? I feel alive. For the first time in a long time, I feel like the wheels have finally gained traction.

The train hums to life. Oh god. It's really happening. I'm really doing this.

I shift in my seat. It's one of those two-seaters tucked behind the window just enough for me to hide my face or see out, depending on the angle. I'm torn between pressing my face to the glass to search for Klaus and leaning as far back as I can.

My fingers tangle in my lap. _Cool it, Caroline. You might draw attention to yourself. Just stay calm. This is all going according to plan. _

Two minutes to departure.

"Excuse me, is this seat free?"

My heart leaps into my throat and I jump, turning with a gasp. Like a ninny, because I scare the bejesus out of the poor guy who was just trying to be polite. "Oh god, I'm so sorry!" I laugh, feeling totally stupid and relieved.

A commuter, judging by his clothes. He's got a nice jacket on and he ironed his jeans. Sure, he has a backpack, but it's the expensive kind and nobody pairs those with anything other than the loafers he's wearing. He's tall, thin, and has the whole older gentleman thing going on. Oh, damn, he cut himself shaving. Nicked himself right next to the sideburn. Thank god I've already eaten. I even have a thermos full of blood to tide me over for a while.

Moms. They do that kind of thing for you.

God, I miss her already.

He smiles back at me and I move my coat out of the seat. The train is filling up fast, and the man settles in as quickly as he can.

I get comfortable again and sigh, pretending that my eyes didn't mist at the thought of my mom. I'm being paranoid. With good reason, yes, but nothing said _Hey, I'm on the lam_! like jumping out of my skin at every little sound. I rest my head against the cool plastic of the train, checking my watch again. 5:45 am. Go time.

As soon as I realize that the train starts to pull forward. I expected it to lurch, but there's a high-pitched whine of modern mechanics at work and then we smoothly transition from stillness to motion. I let out another shaky sigh. I'm going. I'm moving. Inertia overcome.

Not sure what I'm feeling, I glance up-and there he is. Standing on the platform, looking straight at me.

I flow past him like water alongside a rock in what feels like a slow motion frame of a movie. Him looking at me, me staring at him. My mouth open. Stunned. His mouth pressed together, a knowing smirk curling his lips. Challenging.

I know that look.

Game on.

_Can vampires outrun trains?_ I wonder again as time speeds up and the train zooms past.

I guess the real question is-Can a vampire outrun an Original?

_**To Be Continued...**_

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**This originally began as a one shot but I was inspired to add a second part. More will likely follow. **

**Please know that if you've taken the time to read this, please leave a review. I have no idea if anyone is interested in the story otherwise :) **

**If you liked this story, check out my other Klausoline_ Moonlight and Clarity_!**

**Cheers,**

**Ava**


	2. Chapter 2

Disclaimer: I own nothing of TVD, Youtube, or couchsurfing.

**Inertia Overcome Part 2**

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It took him more than two years to find me. I blame myself. I got comfortable. I guess that one big step was so much for me that I wanted to find my way around the new ocean of humanity. First I had to get away. Then I had to choose where to finally step off of the train.

I held on for ages. Getting on the train was wild enough, but getting off again seemed like...I don't know, like I was making it real or something.

There's only so long you can lie to yourself. Eventually I gathered up my fraying courage, told my thumping heart to be quiet, and I lurched out of my seat to practically dive out of the train door. I waited so long that transferring passengers had already left and new passengers were piling in. I went against the flow of humanity様iterally-to get myself into Charllotesville. I don't remember what the station looked like. I just followed the signs to the next platform and got on another train.

The next place I stopped at was Charleston. I stayed there overnight after managing to score a moderately priced hotel room. I compelled the hotel people. As far as they knew, the room sat empty all night and no one wanted it.

I couldn't relax. I was tired. Exhausted, really. Hours tend to blur after a while. Trains are not fast. Well, they're fast, but they aren't planes. They won't get you where you want to go in a hurry. I just couldn't shake the feeling that I wasn't far enough. I was too close to Virginia. After a nap用lagued by nightmares悠 knew I had to keep going.

I had a small suitcase with me. I mean that literally. It was small. It was just meant to carry a few changes of clothes to get me started. I looked up Youtube videos on the best way to pack just to squeeze as much in as I could, but most of my life was left behind when I got on that first train. It was better that way. New beginnings. But I was going to miss a few things.

I bought a new ticket and I just kept going. For a while there my life consisted of nothing but trains. There were upsides and downsides. Sitting for a long time is not fun. You feel cramped and not everybody is nice. There's also not a whole lot to do but sleep and stare out the window. I contemplated life, Tyler, what I was doing, my regrets from as far back as sixth grade. Trains are a way of zening out that I never experienced before. I went through a lot of emotions. I won't lie悠 cried a little. Okay, a lot. Sue me.

That's when the upsides started. I had all this time to myself and I couldn't let all that thinking go to waste. I bought a book. When I finished that, I realized spending all my money on books wasn't an option. So I bought a notebook and a couple of pens. Lo and behold, a travel journal.

I left my fancy phone behind. I planned to get the cheapest prepaid cell I could find when I settled. That meant I had a travel journal but no pictures because, duh, no camera. That didn't seem right. So I started tucking in cool pieces of paper from stations I visited. It was free, so why not? Then I splurged on an old school disposable camera. One hour at the local pharmacy for development was practically pennies, and suddenly I had all this gluing, pasting, and designing to do.

Turns out my perfectionist tendencies carry over into journaling. That scrapbook/journal/thing was a work of _art._

Maybe in the back of my mind I hoped my mom would one day be able to see it.

After a few days I started staying in cities. Checking them out. Seeing the sites. Hostels are cheaper than hotels. Most are really clean, and frankly, backpackers have nothing better to do than make friends along the way. I hooked up with this crazy group of Canadian girls. They knew how to live on a shoestring budget. I tagged along with them. I even traded for a digital camera and added to my collection of pens, bringing in colors. The girls loved my journal. One gave me $10 (a lot of money to a backpacker) to organize her photos like that. I parlayed that into a skill for couchsurfing gifts. Eventually I parted ways from the girls, but we still kept in touch and people started getting word that I was good at what I did.

Who knew people couldn't organize their own souvenirs and momentos?

One of the couchsurfing hosts I stayed with needed a roommate. I had enough money for half the rent. I got a job as a waitress for the cash and did (what I called) Backpacker Memories on the side.

Waitressing is hard. No matter how much of a perfectionist you are, someone's always going to find fault with it.

Luckily my reputation was spreading and soon I needed to spend all my time on Backpacker Memories. It ended up pretty lucrative. After a little over a year I was in a place where I could work (mostly) from home. The fact that I had a home was amazing. I had friends, a new life, everything I could want.

Sometimes.

Sometimes it just wasn't the same.

I had my depression days. The crazy times of vampires and werewolves and supernatural beings coming out of the woodwork was exciting stuff. It must have turned me into an adrenaline junkie. Settling down was almost anticlimactic after all that. I did meet a few vampires now and then. Werewolves too. I had to do some fancy talking to get out of _those_ encounters. The vampires were cool. They just tended to keep to themselves. The werewolves would have been cool too, but it was just too dangerous to hang with them. They didn't have Tyler's feelings for me to circumvent instinct.

And damn, I missed my mother.

But I adjusted. I put down roots.

That was my mistake.

Because Klaus found me. And when he did, things went kind of...crazy.

**to be continued...**

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**I had a moment of creativity and decided to extend the story. Please take the time to review. Thanks!**

**-Ava**


	3. Chapter 3

**Disclaimer-I own none of the characters from TVD.**

Note: We've gone from first person to third person narrative. Because I can.

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She was in the frozen cake aisle.

She wasn't even aware a person could freeze a cake until she started living on her own. She'd always been a bit of a food snob with things like cake; but it was Saturday afternoon, it was raining, her roommate was on a trip out of town.

And it was her birthday.

Her real birthday, not the fake birthday that was on her equally fake birth certificate and her even faker driver's license. _That_ one she'd celebrated three months ago. Nope. Today was the real deal, even if she had no one but herself to prove it to.

New York cheesecake sounded pretty good. Oh, even better, double chocolate mousse.

Cheesecake.

Mousse.

Decisions like this required careful thought and consideration.

Or she could buy both.

Now there was a tempting notion-

"Perhaps you might consider a freshly baked reward rather than that rubbish."

_No._ She froze to the spot, the chill of the freezers nothing compared to the one running down her spine. It couldn't be. It just couldn't.

But of course it was. She should have known.

A thousand and one things that she could have done different raced through her head, followed closely by questions. How? When? Where? Who did he kill to find out?

Her head turned on its own. She didn't seem to have control over her own body anymore.

She stared into his triumphant, taunting blue eyes.

He met her gaze without smiling. "Happy Birthday, Caroline."

She sucked in a breath. Her heart was stuttering back to life, hammering at her ribs as true fear kindled inside.

Klaus casually reached out and trailed a finger down her hoodie sleeve. "Twenty years old", he commented slowly. "Practically ancient."

She should be running. Why weren't her sneakers peeling themselves off of the floor? She was a vampire, for god's sake. Nobody would see a thing. They'd just feel a rush of wind.

And he'd be faster than that wind. Because this was Klaus, the fastest, deadliest man on the planet.

Who was royally pissed off.

"Don't", he warned in a low voice, as if he'd heard her out-of-control thoughts. "You won't get far enough fast enough. And I find my patience is wearing thin." He leaned against the frosted freezer glass and gave her a once-over that was anything but nonchalant. "You look good, love."

It was probably the most casual he'd ever seen her dressed. Patched jeans and a green university hoodie. Why was that the only thought repeating itself in her head suddenly? Stupid, so stupid. She had to get it together. Her chin lifted.

"What do you say you and I go somewhere and catch up?" His gaze burned her. "Your apartment perhaps?"

"Why would I do that?" she retorted. She was ridiculously proud of herself for sounding like she had half a backbone. Klaus' appearance had thrown her for a loop. For a second there she'd wondered if she'd lost some of her nerve over the years.

That didn't mean she wanted to push it. She just didn't want to be pushed around.

He tilted his head. "Caroline. Love. How do you think this is going to end?"

Her chin lifted higher. "Probably not in my favor. That doesn't mean I'll just roll over and play dead." Though _play_ and _dead_ were two words that never went together with this man.

"I do enjoy these little tiffs of ours", he drawled with a lazy smile. "I push. You push back. It's very arousing. Like rough sex with words."

A streak of white-hot anger coursed through her. "Tiff?" she repeated, squaring off with him. Hell, she practically got in his face. "I've spent the last two years being someone I'm not, leaving everything I've ever known behind just to get away from you. And you're calling it a _tiff_?"

Her voice ended on a high note.

Some really small rational part of her raised its eyebrows at her chutzpuh. Nerve was one thing. Steel balls were another. The last time she did this he bit her.

Caroline scowled harder. Whatever. She hadn't come this far to have all her accomplishments marked down as something as trivial as a freakin'...what? Temper tantrum?

She'd taken him by surprise, but a millisecond later he was in her space. They were so close they were breathing the same air. "I call it foreplay. I call it the longest game of chase a man and woman have ever played. I call it your foolish notion of escaping something inevitable. I call it your attempt to punish me for showing Tyler mercy."

"You call giving him a head start mercy. I call it Hammurabi's code taken to a whole new psychotic level."

He sucked in a deep, steadying breath. "Caroline. Do you know what arguing with you does to me?" His arm snaked around her waist. He yanked her flush into his body. She dropped the shopping basket in alarm, slamming her hands into his chest and pushing as hard as she could.

No! He was not going to bite her again!

Then she felt it-his hard on. Her eyes went wide.

Klaus cocked his brows expectantly.

This was just surreal. Feelings were one thing, but this, this was just-oh, god, was she blushing? Oh damn, she was _blushing._ Beet red.

He gave her his patented cat with the cream smile.

"Let go" ,she whispered. Her voice shook. Her gaze darted around, looking anywhere but at him. "You're attracting attention."

He glanced over his shoulder. "So we are. How about it, love? Let's take this somewhere private."

The last thing she wanted to do was go anywhere private with him. Did she have a choice though? He was going to make a scene and she'd spent so much time under radar she desperately wanted to stay anonymous.

"Okay", she said at last. "You let me go, and we'll walk out of here like normal people. But no more touching me, go it?"

He'd never been handsy with her before. Careful, stroking touches. Little pets of her hair. That one kiss when she didn't realize it was him. She had a bad feeling about this kind of turnaround in his attitude.

He was upping the ante.

Blue eyes swept over her face. He made no move to let go.

She tensed up even more.

"Alright", he said at last. His grip loosened, but he didn't so much as let go as _release_ her. Slow, sliding removal of his strength by degrees. She was on to his game. He wanted her to know it was his choice, not hers.

But the touching thing wasn't done yet. He offered her his arm like a gentleman in a movie, holding it out with a hint of a dare. Caroline swallowed as she slid her hand into the crook. He held it close to his body. He had a surprising amount of body heat for a thousand year old guy.

The frozen food section was close to the registers and the exit, but it had to be the longest walk Caroline had taken in a while. People were looking. Of course they were; Klaus was twisted and a little deranged, yes, but that didn't mean he was ugly. The opposite. A man like him came with the face of an angel.

Okay. Maybe not an angel. She was darned if she could come up with a better description for it though. Maybe a model. Even when he was just wearing a plain button up shirt with long sleeves and ironed jeans.

She ducked her head, trying to think of a way out of this. "How did you find me?"

He strolled along as though they were walking through a park, his gait lithe and graceful. "It wasn't easy, truth be told. A bit like a jigsaw puzzle. Eventually the clues came together." He slid a glance her way. "If you want to stay lost, love, you should cut all ties to the past."

Said the guy who dragged one brother around for, what, seven hundred years or something? "Are you going to give me a straight answer?"

"The letters, love. You were very good about leaving out damning details and return addresses, but one of your helpful little friends thoughtfully delivered the last in person."

Dammit. She'd been so careful. She'd given the letters to backpackers to send wherever they went so the postmarks wouldn't match. She hadn't counted on someone trying to do the decent thing and _handing_ one to her mom. "How did you get your hands on it?" she demanded.

The look he gave her was pure patronization.

She exhaled. "Did anyone die?"

"Now that would have been unnecessary, wouldn't you say?"

They passed through the automatic doors. She nearly tripped over herself when Klaus nodded at the elderly greeter and gave him a smile, big as you please.

The ran was coming down hard. Klaus eyeballed the storm curiously. "How did you get here, Caroline?"

"I took the bus." She didn't have the money for a car. In the city it didn't make much sense either. That was another thing totally different from Mystic Falls; public transportation. She didn't know how she'd lived without it.

"Luckily I can provide more acceptable means of travel." All it took was a wave of his hand, and a big black SUV pulled out of a parking spot. Seconds later the door opened and out stepped what could only be a hybrid.

This was one of those crucial moments in a movie where Caroline usually ended up yelling at the screen. What kind of dummy got into a black SUV filled with strange men and a supernatural all-powerful being?

She had new respect for those poor put upon heroines now. She understood how little choice there could be.

So she climbed in, ignoring Klaus' helping hand. She was a big girl. If she was going to ride to her doom, she was going to do it under her own power. Of course, thinking that in her head and actually doing it were two different things. She huddled against the opposite side while Klaus slid in after her and closed the door with a decisive, ominous thud.

The two men sitting in the front seats didn't even ask for her address. They just drove. She wasn't even sure if they _were_ going to her apartment. For all she knew they were going back to Mystic Falls.

What was she going to do? Just go back? She'd worked really hard to make a place for herself here. She wanted to see her mom, and Elena, and Bonnie, but that meant going back to a life that didn't fit her anymore.

She fidgeted, waiting for Klaus to say something.

He looked over. She met his gaze.

"Buckle up, love."

She blinked. "That's it? That's all you're going to say?"

He turned in his seat, the material creaking beneath him. Caroline tensed. He had her where he wanted her. She'd fight if she had to, but really, she wasn't all the confident of her skills in a tight space like this.

Suddenly he leaned forward. She couldn't help it; she flinched. He paused, arm outstretched, clocking every reaction. She couldn't read his expression. She hated that. She wanted to know exactly what he was feeling, the same way he seemed to know about her.

He came closer. She refused to back away, heartbeat accelerating.

His arm curved around her body and snagged the seat belt. He pulled it out as far as it would go. Did he deliberately brush her breast? She couldn't tell, sucking in a breath. He was so near he was back to sharing her air. His gaze trailed down to her mouth. "Safety first", he rasped.

The seat belt clicked into the lock. There was something final about that.

Then he sat back and looked out of his window.

Was he freakin' kidding her?

Caroline glanced around, trying to figure out what the setup was. Klaus had been looking for her for two years, and she hadn't made it easy on him. Where was the rage? The bender? The punishment? Why did he just wish her a happy birthday and then drive her home?

Maybe this was just the beginning. Maybe things would really get bad whenever they got to wherever they were going. Judging by the scenery she could see through the sheets of rain, they were headed back to her apartment after all. She didn't even want to know how he knew about it.

She was starting to feel cornered. Trapped like a blonde ex-cheerleader beauty queen rat. "Is this the grand plan?" she burst out. "Kill me with anticipation?"

He was utterly surprised. "Is it anticipation, Caroline? How interesting."

Okay. It was a poor choice of words. People sounded a lot cooler in the movies.

This was ridiculous. She didn't have to take crap from anybody, least of all Klaus. Yeah, he was the most dangerous person she knew. Yeah, she didn't have a prayer of getting out of this in one piece if he didn't want her too. She was still Caroline Forbes, twenty years old, self-made entrepreneur. Not some meek wallflower.

The car jerked. A horn blared.

Klaus flung his arm across her body.

The hybrid driver, the one who looked like a Russian mobster, swore viciously and flipped the other car off.

Caroline looked down at Klaus' arm. "I'm fine" ,she said shakily.

"Traffic is murder here", he remarked against the soft hum of the radio. It was, predictably, the golden oldies station. Classic seventies.

Not that she cared at the moment. She was too busy processing the amped up interpersonal touching Klaus had going on.

Four dozen scenarios were rolling through her mind when they pulled into her complex's parking lot. Klaus gave the two hybrids a long, hard look. "Wait here. This will take awhile."

Seriously? The way he said it was downright indecent. But she kept her lips zipped while he opened the door and slid out, waiting for her outside.

She could jump ship. Try to lose him in the rain. Become homeless again and head for the Canadian border.

Should have done that in the first place. Canada must be nice when it wasn't snowing.

Klaus reached out a hand. "Time to go, Caroline."

And what did she do? She went.

She still didn't take his hand, though.

Caroline lived on the fourth floor. It was an old building. It still had some of the charming originals, like a wooden staircase that creaked like crazy when someone stepped on it. The banister was handcarved and intricate. Sometimes at night Caroline liked to sit in front of it and just trace the lines. She didn't have to exactly worry about her safety while she did it.

Not like now.

There wasn't an elevator, and even if there was she would have taken the stairs anyway. He followed leisurely behind, his easy footsteps totally different from her stomping climb. His eyes were firmly glued on her butt too, if the burning sensation was any indication.

When they got to her floor she practically flashed to her apartment. She pulled out her keys and unlocked it, opening the door but staying in the hall. Hand on the doorknob, she turned to face Klaus with renewed courage. He couldn't come in if she didn't invite him. There was some measure of temporary safety at least.

He was vastly amused. "Going to play that game, love? What happened to that anticipation you were talking about?"

"Why are you here?" she asked bluntly.

He blinked. "Because you decided to take a little trip without me."

"I ran away." She could call a spade a spade.

His sensual lips tightened. "I'm aware of that."

"Why aren't you mad?"

"Who says I'm not?" he asked nonchalantly, hands folded behind his back.

"You're not acting like it."

"I choose to refrain for the moment, though if you continue with this line of inquiry I can't promise anything."

Her fingers tightened on the handle. "Why did you come after me?"

His amusement slipped away like dark magic. "Do you really have to ask?"

"Yes. I'm not going back." She didn't know when she'd decided that. It just seemed important that she had.

Klaus shrugged. "Then don't."

"What about your precious hybrid plans?"

"I have that well in hand. Don't worry, darling. I have all the time in the world to dedicate to you."

That's what she was afraid of. "I don't want you to dedicate time to me."

There. She'd said it.

His eyes hardened for the briefest moment. "Do you really want to do this in the hall, Caroline? The walls have ears." He entreated her playfully. "I did promise you a birthday treat."

She'd gotten into a car with him. That was as crazy as her day was getting, thank you very much. And she wasn't going to be "treated" to anything, especially when he said it in that seductive tone. "Look, Klaus. Let's lay all our cards on the table."

His face darkened. "Let's not."

"Yes. We can't keep doing this."

"You're taking a dangerous road, love."

"I've been on it for two years." She chanced a step closer. "Why does it have to be like this? Why can't you just let us both go? This entire messed-up tangle is toxic. It's not good for you, or me, or-"

"Tyler", he cut in knowingly, his expression shuttering. "Still thinking of the little Lockwood, are we?"

Caroline faltered. "I was going to say anyone, but no, it's not good for him either. Let him come home, Klaus. Please. Let us just live our lives as normally as we can." Her shoulders slumped. She was tired. "I miss my mom", she confessed.

His jaw worked."It was your choice to leave."

She was antagonizing him. She knew it, and she still kept talking. Maybe she was trying to save herself. Maybe she was just at the end of her rope. Either way, she needed to get it off of her chest.

"Why do you think I did?" She bent her head, trying to catch his eye. He wouldn't look at her, staring at some point of the nondescript wall. She worried her lip, trying to think of something, anything. "I wish I knew what I could say to get through to you."

"Why? Because I'm so dense I can't see the situation for what it is?" He turned a hard stare on her. "I didn't realize I had given you reason to doubt my intelligence, Caroline."

Oh, no. She started to shake her head. "Please don't be like that-"

"We need a bit of clarity, you and I. A good long discussion about the status of our relationship."

Great, now he was ignoring whatever she said completely. She threw up her hands. "I can't deal with this. I'm going inside. You are _not_ invited", she told him firmly.

Something dangerous flared in his eyes.

She shouldn't have ignored it. Caroline was too high on emotion to take that into account, though, and she flung open her door without another word to him, flouncing inside. Even vampire super speed couldn't have cut her off.

Some people, though, had really bad timing.

Just as she turned to wish him goodnight妖on't ask her why she did it佑aroline heard the telltale sounds of someone coming down the stairs. The danger didn't immediately register. She just glanced at her new neighbor and gave her a friendly smile.

Klaus half-turned. "Oh, look, darling. A snack." He smiled darkly, eyes already changing. "Just as I was feeling a bit peckish."

It happened so fast Caroline had no time to cry out. One instant the woman was descending the stairs and the next she was hauled up into Klaus' arms, his fangs buried in her neck.

Caroline raced forward. "No!" She hit him on the back once, twice. "Let her go!"

The woman-girl-didn't know what was happening, but she was already crying in pain and struggling. Oh god, she was going to die!

Not knowing what else to do, Caroline did the only thing she could think of and bit him. Sank her teeth right into the meat of his arm.

He came up with a roar. He dropped the woman.

Caroline flashed back before he could turn on her, came around, and put herself right between her neighbor and the terrifying man in front of them. The poor girl was sobbing uncontrollably, cowering.

"Stop!" she cried out. "Just stop! Why do you keep doing this? God, what is-just what is wrong with you?" From one second to the next he'd gone from charming to rampaging beast of the night.

His eyes glittered at her. "Get out of the way, Caroline."

She drew herself up and spread out her arms. "No. I won't let you hurt her anymore." Enough was enough. She was taking her life into her own hands, but she was so damned tired of the blood and the guts and the gore. She'd thought she'd left all of this behind! And it was because of him. All him.

"It has nothing to do with you", he half hissed.

"B.S.! I'm sick of you always lashing out when you feel bad. If you want to hurt someone, hurt me!" He'd do it too. Was she crazy? He'd tear out her heart at the first opportunity. She must be losing it, because she found herself saying it again. "Did you hear me? Go on, do it!"

Hysteria. It had to be. "I'm the one you really want to get at, right? So grab a stake and jab it in me. You've done it before."

He tilted his head, watching her in that careful way someone watches an animal. His mouth, ringed with blood, thinned. "You're getting yourself all worked up, darling. It's unbecoming."

"Who cares? I'm done. Totally done. Make your move."

"You want to save the pitiful human's life? Fine. Give me a reason I should."

"Because I asked you to."

"I'm afraid that's not good enough, love. Give me something concrete. Something I can really sink my teeth into." He bared said teeth in a mockery of a smile.

She racked her brain but came up short. "What do you want?"

He tilted his head the other way. "Oh, I think we both know what I want."

She stiffened. "You can't be serious." He was. She could see it. "We were just talking about this!"

"A hybrid for a date. There must be something you're willing to trade for a human you're so determined to save."

Another date? With the man who murdered her boyfriend's mother? Who would freakin' wipe out the entire town if the mood took him? Did nothing she'd said matter? "I'm not playing your game any more."

He stepped closer, bringing him in dangerous proximity. "Oh? That's too bad. This might get messy." He smiled. "In fact, I might decide to play for a while."

The woman behind her whimpered pitifully and started to pray.

Caroline thought hard. She had to save her. Had to.

Klaus took another step.

"Wait! One date", she said shakily. "We can go on one more date." She couldn't believe she was doing this again.

"Not good enough, Caroline. You see, we've done that and I'm terribly greedy. Sweeten the pot."

He couldn't mean- "You want me to have sex with you?" she asked incredulously.

"Try to be more creative, love. This isn't nighttime telly and I'm not particularly interested in growing a mustache to twirl."

"Then you're going to have to spell things out for me, because I haven't got a clue what the next step is."

His lashes lowered to her neck. "I dared you once to take a chance."

Realization was dawning. No freakin' way.

He looked up at her with hooded eyes, a cat on the way to tasting the cream. "I think we're well past the point of dares, don't you?"

If she thought the situation crazy before, then things had just turned into full blown insanity. "A relationship?"

"Eventually. Think of it more as a courtship. An exclusive chance for me to win you over."

She eyed him warily. "That can't be all there is to it."

"So suspicious. It's very straightforward, Caroline. Give me what I want, and I will give you what you want." He shrugged one shoulder. "I did try to do this the nice way, but c es la vie."

"You're saying that if I allow you to...court me, you won't kill anyone else." She had to be sure.

"Self-defense is of course an exception." His gaze sharpened. "And don't get any ideas of wriggling out of details. I want your full involvement, Caroline. You will commit yourself to this. As long as you do, I will temper myself."

She tried to think of another way, but nothing was magically presenting itself. It was either his way or no way. She bit her lip, scared to say the words, knowing full well if she didn't someone would die.

And would it be so bad, really? She tried to seize on that flimsy piece of hope. Klaus was psychotic, but he was tender with her. Sometimes. Maybe it would be okay. Maybe she wouldn't regret this for the rest of her incredibly long life.

He waited patiently, eyes piercing. He seemed to have caught his breath with anticipation.

She sucked in a deep breath. "Okay" ,she said at last. "Okay, I'll do it." Her arms and knees trembled with the weight of her decision.

"Your word, Caroline. I want there to be no misunderstanding."

"If you swear to never kill another human or vampire except in self-defense, I promise I will...be with you."

"Without reservations?"

There would always be reservations. "With full commitment."

There was a half-beat of silence, as though he were waiting for the other shoe to drop. He exhaled long and slow. A smile lit up his face, satisfaction burning like a fierce light. "Excellent."

**_To be continued..._**

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**I'm better known for my Harry Potter fanfiction (Future Parents Program) than I am for anything else, but I'm really enjoying the way this story is shaping up. If you read, please review. **

**And until the next chapter is up, check out my other Klausoline called Moonlight and Clarity. **

**-Ava**


	4. Chapter 4

**Disclaimer: I own no part of TVD or Harlequinn**

**Inertia Overcome-Part Four**

Caroline Forbes was mine. Every fascinating, quivering, determined inch of her.

How I enjoyed her steel moral compass. Though vexing from time to time, it did have its perks. It transformed Caroline from a vapid, pretty face into an irresistible beacon of strength...and when necessary, became the perfect tool with which to, shall we say, _guide_ her to my way of thinking.

She jutted her chin into the air to hide her inner turmoil. I could read her much better than she knew, but I said nothing. I merely watched with avid interest as she turned to sooth the human that was still crying on the floor. I confess that part of me was irked to no longer be the center of her attention. Nearly two years of her absence had made me a bit possessive.

I felt the corner of my mouth curl and acknowledged the truth. I was possessive long before Caroline ever fled Mystic Falls.

She spoke in a low, calming voice designed for children and the panicked. And Tyler Lockwood. She did like to baby that boy.

Lest my good mood darken, I shoved him ruthlessly from my thoughts. He had no place here. Not any longer.

I let my gaze trail over Caroline's lithe form. Vampires were not known for changing a great deal, but basic biology still had a hand in our existence. Our hair could grow, I had spent the last one thousand years shaving, and though she would rather be daggered than admit it, Rebekah had become quite the glutton when chocolate was first discovered.

Caroline's hair was longer, though not significantly so. Just enough to sink my hand in and delight in wrapping the strands over my fist. Her hips were rounder, her ass matured from sexy to exquisite. I longed to see what other changes had occurred, but that intriguing hoodie she wore successfully hid them from view. I had only my considerable imagination.

I swiped a thumb over my mouth, licking it to clean the blood away, my eyes never leaving her. I drank in her differences, cataloging them with male meticulousness. I had never cared what a woman looked like before; truth be told, I liked them all. That is to say, a woman's appearance mattered less than nothing for the two uses I had for her. Blood was blood, and when baser urges took hold, sex was satisfying or disappointing irrespective of shape or size.

But Caroline's body...oh, there was a feast for all the senses.

I ran my tongue over my teeth, hopefully clearing away the last traces of my indulgence. I marveled at my own restraint, actually. Despite what Caroline seemed to think, the last two years had not been spent in a zen state of careful planning of this day. She'd actually tricked me for once. Rather, she'd moved just a bit quicker than I could react, leaving me standing on a platform watching her propel herself into a big, big world.

Abandoned.

I've wiped out towns for less.

Things got a bit bloody after that. Pent up rage needed an outlet after all. Attempts to terrorize her mother into talking proved fruitless. The woman simply had nothing to tell. She'd stared me down without flinching. At that point my anger was so great that the only thing keeping me from snapping her neck was her ties to her daughter. No matter what else Caroline Forbes might forgive, the murder of her mother was a line that could never be crossed.

I lost myself in a few dark, violent activities that no doubt will live on in local memory for decades to come, but eventually the fugue dissipated and I focused my energies on recovering what was mine.

And she was mine.

The irony of the situation did not escape me. I derided Elijah's emotional attachment to Katerina. I had not changed my opinion; love is a vampire's greatest weakness. I sought to escape that trap with Caroline. I was pulled in despite myself, though. Ultimately I learned a painful lesson when she disappeared: better to be with her than without her, whatever my thoughts on my own dependency.

I listened to Caroline compel the woman into forgetting the last few minutes. She wanted her to go on with her blissfully ignorant day, free from the knowledge of vampires and her own mortality.

While she would forget, I would not. I would mark this as one of the most satisfying moments of my tumultuous relationship with my girl to date—the moment she surrendered herself into my hands.

There was very little that I could legitimately claim to regret. This particular piece of coercion was no different. Caroline was as stubborn as they came. I was too easy with her before. The proverbial gloves were off. I would handle her as I saw fit from now on.

With probably as much care as she handled me.

The human stumbled to her feet and toddled off to live her fleeting life. I didn't bother to watch her go, but it left Caroline and I alone much sooner than she probably liked.

I didn't mind the accusation in her soft blue eyes after she stood up. Or perhaps it was better to say I tolerated it. I smiled and swept my hand toward her door. "Shall we?"

She debated. It was a brief struggle. I had already proven I had the upper hand in this situation. The best course of action was simply to follow along.

Her delectable mouth firmed into a line. She walked smartly over to her still open door and stepped over the threshold. She faced me with a spine as straight as a poker. "Come in, you bastard."

I should have expected as much. Caroline wasn't the sort to take anything placidly. Still, my brows shot to my hairline at her sally.

She didn't wait for my reply. She spun on her heel and marched away.

I was after her in a flash. I had her backed up against a wide purple couch, my hands on her hips and my pelvis flush against her belly. "Don't be a brat, Caroline. I've been more lenient with you than habit allows."

Thunder rolled overhead, a moody backdrop to our own private drama.

She thrust her face at mine. "Oh, that's rich coming from you! Was I the only one standing out there a second ago? And you tricked me!" She slapped both hands on my chest and pushed with all her considerable strength. "Let...go!"

"Fat chance. Let's not forget which of us has spent the last two years on the run...and which of us has done the hunting. My patience can only stretch so far, my love."

For the first time since meeting again I let Caroline see just how furious I was with her. Her shoves faltered. I heard her heart skip a beat.

My anger lessened somewhat. It was always a delicate balance with her—the need to instill a healthy respect while avoiding fear. I enjoyed terror. It proved my power. A cowering Caroline, however, left a bitter taste in my mouth.

I lifted one hand from her hips to trace the delicate curve of her cheek. "There are many, many ways I could have handled today. In the beginning I entertained fantasies of locking you in a small, well-furnished room, a lovely studded collar around your neck anchored by a length of chain to the wall. Reinforced, naturally. I was particularly attracted to the idea of rendering you completely dependent upon me."

Her pupils dilated.

"You would be my very own pet." I loved the way she smelled. Even that oversized top she had on couldn't mask it. "As tempting as that notion was, it never seemed quite right."

Caroline's pulse beat a terrific tattoo against her throat. I let my finger trail over her chin and down the lovely column. "In my darker moments I confess that I wanted to bite this throat and claim it as mine. The problem with that is of course that you would be in danger of dying." I met her gaze. "Not my ultimate goal."

The cumbersome material of her hoodie prevented me from following along her collarbone, so I had to content myself with tracing the imaginary line. I curved my hand over her shoulder, marveling at how fragile she seemed compared to me. "I therefore had to ask myself what _was_ my ultimate goal. What did I _really_ want?"

She shivered. I relished it.

I smiled into her face, basking in the intensity of her attention. Her eyes missed nothing. "The answer of course was you." I leaned in and buried my visage in her hair, inhaling deeply. "Just like this. Breathless. At my mercy. Beautiful, bright Caroline. The only question remaining was...how do I keep you so?"

"So you thought blackmailing me into dating you was the best course of action?" If she knew her voice shook in my ear, she didn't let on. "That's very Harlequinn romance of you. Is this the part where _no_ means _yes_ and _yes_ means _take me now, you hunk of manbeast_?"

I chuckled. "Read many of those, love? The last option is always open to you." I gave her a nudge as to leave no doubt what I meant. Then I released her.

Every instinct in me protested not to be stupid, to grab on and hold tight, but I rather fancied the idea of keeping Caroline guessing about my intentions.

I turned and strolled away, pointedly ignoring the wary stare aimed directly at my shoulders. I looked around, taking in the sights.

It was slightly above average as far as apartments went. The furniture was clearly thrifted, but Caroline—and I had no doubt it was her doing—had proven her creative mettle by scrubbing and repainting with modern colors. I approved of her choices. Tasteful without being obvious, warm without overwhelming. The living room was sparsely furnished on what seemed to be a nonexistent budget. Quite different from the house in Mystic Falls. The ceiling, however, retained the medallion some forgotten artist had fixed there. It was large, floral, and had a touch of timelessness.

"1890s," I mused. "It's no brownstone in New York, but it's classic. Architecture went to pot after the forties in America." I grimaced. "Too generic."

She said nothing. I didn't look, but I highly doubted she'd blinked in the last minute and a half.

I was not surprised Caroline had settled into a place like this. It was an interesting melding of old and new—very much like the lady herself.

And that was just the living room. There were no end of wonders waiting in Caroline's private bedroom.

Later, I promised myself.

There was a whiteboard affixed to the end of the wall separating the eat-in kitchen from the living room. I strode over to it and plucked one of the pizza delivery advertisements from the assortment. "Why don't you order us a few things, darling, while I handle the rest of your birthday extravaganza."

I pulled my wallet from my pocket and extracted a card. "My treat, of course." I thrust both items her direction, gratified by the way she automatically accepted. "No anchovies or pineapples," I warned. "Fruit and fish do not belong on pizza."

She looked from her hand to me as if she'd stopped processing the situation. "You're serious?"

I didn't smile, but I winked as I replaced the wallet and pulled out my mobile. "As a heart attack." I pressed speed dial and lifted the phone to my ear. "Robby," I said without preamble, still looking at Caroline, "Where are we with the cake?"

She didn't move. "You ordered me a cake."

I hummed at Robby's response. "Good." I hung up. "The cake will be here in an hour. The weather seems to be slowing everyone down."

"You were that sure of yourself," she said dully, as if she hadn't heard me.

I blinked. "I always am, love."

"I need to sit down," she suddenly declared. "I just need to...take a deep breath and sit down." She walked past me with all the animation of a zombie—nasty creatures—heading for a beat up kitchen chair painted a cheery blue. She pulled it out and plopped down, still holding my card and the brochure while she stared at the table surface.

It was my turn to watch her warily. "Caroline?"

She lifted a shoulder. "Was any of this necessary?"

I ambled closer. "How do you mean?" I chose my words carefully, unsure of the new turn the conversation had taken.

"Running. Staying away for two years. What was the point when you just show up and take over like you own me?"

Had she said it in a more accusing voice, I might have gotten defensive. I doubted Caroline knew the meaning of being owned. Women in my day were chattel. Let no one tell you otherwise. There were men that respected their wives, mothers, and lovers, but there were just as many who knew that in the eyes of the law a woman was not a person. She was a piece of property occasionally signed over to a new proprietor. In fact, men used to say "I own a wife" rather than "I have a wife".

The Enlightenment had improved the situation somewhat, but the fact was that the majority of my time on Earth saw women as commodities. That was of course excluding the complicated system of serfdom and indentured servitude that in some degree continued to present day.

No, Caroline didn't know what it was like to be owned. Part of me longed to teach her.

But I didn't like how defeated she sounded. Rather, I didn't appreciate it. I thought I'd been rather understanding given the circumstances. "I must admit,"I ground out with great effort to hold back my fangs, "I expected to find you in some far flung place like Portugal. Italy." I shrugged. "Germany."

I walked over and pulled out the chair facing her.

"Couldn't get the money together."

I had pulled my phone out again and searched my contacts list. "You could have compelled them."

"Maybe. Maybe I would have done it after a few more years. America's a big place. I wanted to see it as it was before I went somewhere else." I felt her studying me. "Are you going to tell me you'll take me again?"

I found the name I was looking for and selected it. "Being with me, Caroline," I said as I held the phone to my ear, "has a great many more perks than traveling."

The call connected. "Hello?"

"Sheriff Forbes," I greeted, taking in the way Caroline's pretty eyes widened. "I have someone here that would like to talk to you."

I held the phone out like a dark temptation, the display plain for her to see. She watched it the way an alcoholic eyed the bottle, part yearning, part disbelief in its availability. I arched a brow. "Well, Caroline?"

**To be continued...**

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Lots of people reading this story, but not as many who review :( If you're enjoying what's happening so far, let me know! If you've taken the time to review before, thank you very much.

-Ava


	5. Chapter 5

**Inertia Overcome Part 5**

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I've seen and learned a great deal during my time on earth. You don't live a thousand years without picking up a thing or two along the way. _Exempli gratia_—naked brutality is all well and good, even welcome upon occasion. It's certainly gotten me places in the past.

The human in the hall comes to mind.

Yet now and then violence proves itself unnecessary. Truth be told, there are times I simply cannot be bothered to break a neck or tear out a throat. There are also rare moments when knocking heads about simply doesn't work.

That is when the art of coercion comes into play. And it is an art, as much as the stroke of a brush across canvas. The key lies not in _subtly,_ however. It lies in _seduction._

It's known as a devil's bargain. Particularly apt, perhaps even a little ironic. Caroline certainly eyed me as if I were Satan himself sprung from the depths. Not exactly a romantic turn to our relationship, but I was working on it.

I dangled the mobile between two fingers, outright entreating her to take it. Caroline was no fool, of course. She knew that accepting the phone was accepting everything that came with it. My protection. My presence. The future I was determined to have together.

Time means something different to a vampire. Yet even I felt those seconds tick by keenly. I knew I would win. I never had a doubt on that score. It was merely a matter of finding the right trigger. My blond vampiress had let me through the door. She had even agreed to my terms. But up until that very moment, Caroline had never once accepted me. It seemed I had never realized how much importance I laid upon that fact. I felt it weigh down upon my shoulders and chest, a tangible bubble of anticipation.

I finally had the trump card in my hand.

"Hello?" The tinny voice of the sheriff cut through the silence.

Caroline's eyes were instantly wet. She sucked in a breath that sounded almost painful, and the cord of her resistance snapped. For once her vampire speed was faster than even my eye could catch; the phone was in her hand, pressed against her delicate ear, and soon she was babbling watery gibberish that made no sense to anyone but her mother. I merely understood the occasional, "Mom! Mom!" as if calling the name enough would invoke the woman's physical presence in the kitchen.

It struck me then, how deeply Caroline had felt the separation from her parent. I have experienced a variety of emotions towards my dam and sire; some violent, all of them powerful, but none had matched this...breadth, if one discounted the chasm of longing I'd once had. Caroline attacked the conversation like a cat latching onto a tree. It was equal parts adorable and baffling. During the course of my observation, for a very brief moment, the region around my heart softened and I felt yearning.

For what, I wasn't certain. I merely refused to pursue it further.

I sat and watched for quite a while; Caroline had forgotten me within seconds. I could view her essentially unobserved even when her exultant energy became too much. She rose from the chair and went on the move. She never really stopped. Not after ten minutes. Not even after thirty, or when the call transferred from my phone to Skype on the laptop previously abandoned on the coffee table. There was an interesting break when Sheriff Forbes noted my presence; naturally she knew I was there—I had after all called her—but my proximity to her child gave her the minutest of pauses. Then her relief at speaking with Caroline reasserted itself and the conversation was off again.

The cake arrived eventually. I accepted it at the door and put in a further order for pizza. Caroline was not going to be speaking with me for a while. Even vampires want something to nosh on now and then.

As they talked, I wandered. I listened intently while I took better looks at the photos distributed artfully about the room. Caroline was recounting her adventures of the last two years with a depth of detail I found astonishing. I knew much of it already. Caroline had perfected the art of the written letter during her absence, pouring everything she could onto the pages. I felt no less intrusive now than I did hungrily reading her letters, looking for any sign or clue of where she was. I let her voice roll over me like a babbling brook, comforted by the sound of the rain and the thunder in the backdrop.

There was something charming in the way Caroline told stories. She had absolutely no talent for telling jokes. She always arsed it in one way or the other, yet she could describe a place in such a way as to set her audience firmly in the scenery. When she waved her hands dramatically, I waited for the frustration to blow over. When she laughed, I found myself smiling. I had not realized how much I missed her laugh.

I was grateful vampires couldn't read minds. Mine was altogether too steeped in sentimentality to be borne.

I admitted a small amount of perverse satisfaction in the situation. Despite the irritation her disappearance had caused me, she had inadvertently done exactly what I wished her to do. She had spread her delightful little Southern wings and tasted a bit of what the world had to offer. How telling that after two—and by her own admission, long- years away from that dreary one-pony town, Caroline had only expressed interest in seeing her mother. In fact, she'd declared herself starkly opposed to returning to Mystic Falls.

I smiled to myself. She had yet to openly say so, but her appetite for travel had only been whetted. It was clear in her story telling. It was present in every picture she displayed, every souvenir she'd collected. Caroline had seen marvelous things. Knowing her as I did, I was certain they hadn't been enough to satisfy her. I planned to capitalize on that.

She was a beautiful challenge, Caroline. The first woman I wanted to want me.

I picked up a worn copy of _Pride and Prejudice _and flipped through it. The familiar perfume of old paper wafted up. The book's presence amused me. Charming Miss Jane Austen immortalized only a small, biased fragment of human attitude. If one took her word for gospel, one might believe that the pre-modern world was all curtsies and restrained passions.

No one but historians and teachers recalled the Year of No Summer, when a volcanic eruption caused disastrous changes to the climate. Paintings from that period depicted brilliant yellow sunsets thanks to the atmospheric variations, but it was so much more than pretty colors. I remember the food shortages. The temperatures dropped below freezing well into June, killing all the necessary crops. There wasn't enough to feed horses, let alone people. Death was everywhere, and desperation turns a human into something very ugly indeed.

Shakespeare himself was a bit of a nasty bastard, though people wouldn't know that for centuries. Another case of a writer's work replacing reality. People thought of _Romeo and Juliet_ and sighed over its romanticism. I recalled a time when fourteen was a respectable age for marriage and motherhood. People tended to get old quickly in those days. As for the author, he was something of a landowner who liked to hoard food and then sell it at enormously inflated prices. Not the courtly picture one might get from say, _Pride and Prejudice. _

Before that there was the Plague. At times I could still smell the stench. Mass death, mass graves, lots and lots of land available for the taking. Hundreds of battles fought for that land. Europe essentially became a dog fight in a very small pen. Brutal, unforgiving, and deadly.

Before that there were the Crusades, before that William the Bastard's invasion of Britain, both of which were completely with people skinned and boiled alive.

Endless cyclical apocalyptic fright, witch trials, beheadings, rape, depravity, savagery, murder, mayhem, and human trafficking. A thousand years of history and all Caroline probably knew of it was a book about a man proposing before he'd ever gotten around to kissing the lady.

My lips quirked. I was very much a product of my experiences, the depths of which would terrify Caroline if she had more than an inkling. Had this been another era, I doubt I would have expended the same energy in beguiling her as I have done these last few years. I wondered if she realized how enormously patient I had been thus far. Most likely not.

"You're more Rochester than Darcy."

I looked up, surprised to find the call had concluded. My thoughts had taken me further than I'd realized. Caroline was watching me solemnly over the back of the couch, her expression cryptic. I wondered how long she had been observing me unnoticed. "Care to elaborate?"

She leaned her cheek on the cushion, leaving only her eyes exposed to me. "You're broody and mercurial. Your moods switch like a light and people can never tell what you're going to do next."

I closed the paperback and returned it to its place. "And here I thought you were going to reference a secret wife and a tragic penchant for uttering exclamations."

She tilted her head, solemn as a church mouse. "I could mention the age difference, but I'll let the obvious state itself."

I approached and leaned a hip on the sofa back where I could see her better, arms crossed."Would you also like to draw similarities between yourself and Jane? Rochester's little bird flew away too, only to return to his side after a year."

"Maybe. Some people need to leave."

"I agree." I could not get enough of looking at her. "One might argue she was a better person for the experience, but the fact remains that they belonged together."

The need to touch her became too strong to resist. I reached up and tucked a curl behind her ear, smiling when her eyes turned wary. She had noted my increased familiarity and it put her on her guard. A hint of mischief prodded me to lean forward and drop my voice half an octave. "I'm not Rochester, Caroline. If anything, I am Hades of the Underworld."

**xxxxxx**

I felt the declaration right in my gut, because yes, yes he was. And if he was Hades, then there was no doubt in my mind he thought of me as Persephone.

His smile widened. "Care for something to eat, darling?"

My eyebrows shot up and he laughed at me. Well, what had he expected? Rapture? Geez.

"I ordered pizza and your cake is going to spoil if we don't do something about it soon." He rose with the grace of a cat, like the rules of inertia didn't apply to him. I wanted to tell him to take his cake and put it where the sun didn't shine, but something stopped me. Call it sentimentality. I'd just spent over an hour talking to my mom for the first time in years and I was as emotionally spent as a person could be. Call it longing; even though my mom had wished me a soft, "happy birthday" before hanging up—like that's not a tearjerker—I hadn't really celebrated my birthday in...way too long.

I wanted to be the belle of the ball again. Miss Mystic Falls, with a ton of birthday cards and a gorgeous guy on my arm.

And I wanted to be the Caroline Forbes I was now. The entrepreneur. The traveler. The former waitress.

I spent my 18th birthday in bed, convinced I was going to die. I spent my 19th birthday locked in my room with a cupcake and a candle so no one would ask questions. I supposed spending my 20th with a guy literally a thousand years old and a serious thing for me wasn't the worst way to end the evening. If I told Klaus, which I had no intention of doing, about how I felt right then, he'd probably have said something about marking new beginnings. Bringing the old and new me together.

That wasn't so bad.

Part of me wasn't even shocked that I'd come to all these conclusions with Mr. Ancient Psycho in the room, either.

So I got up without a word. He stood aside like a gentleman and let me pass him, but not before I caught that surprised glint of pleasure in his eyes. I guess he expected me to put up a fight. He _had_ tried to rip out my neighbor's throat and manipulated me into...I don't know, dating him or whatever people could call it.

The problem was that there comes a point in an evening of nonstop action where stuff doesn't affect you anymore. Nothing else could possibly have surprised me that day.

It was strange, how much Klaus filled up a room just by standing in it. He wasn't even within touching distance yet I could _feel_ his eyes on my back. He had presence, and charisma, and intensity. Not the Brad Pitt/Achilles in Troy kind either. More like...what was the name of the bad guy in _Star Trek_?

I turned the corner, Klaus behind me, when I spotted the cake for the first time. _Star Trek_ was totally forgotten.

I didn't know what I was expecting. Actually, that was a lie. That conversation we'd once had about birthdays, coupled with the fancy balls and expensive gifts led me to believe that my birthday cake would be huge. Massive. Barely able to fit on my thrifted table.

I was wrong.

I didn't know what to make of the small white frosted confection. I leaned closer to inspect the swirls artfully drawn on the sides. There sprinkles of chocolate on the top. Not sprinkles the way I knew them; actual chocolate flakes that looked as though they'd been painstakingly shaved from a bar. There were deco ridges on the top that demarcated piece size. Nothing was written on the cake, just a cherry sitting in the middle like a proud crown.

I'd never seen anything like it.

I looked at Klaus, wondering what I was looking at. "Where did you get this?"

He was fiddling with his phone again. "Turns out there's a delightful German bakery in the vicinity. I took the liberty of making the baker lady's acquaintance."

I was nonplussed. "Is there a bratwurst in the middle?"

Music began to play. It wasn't anything remotely modern. There were a lot of violins and other important-sounding instruments.

"Have you never had a cake made by a German before?" I detected a hint of amusement under the scandalized tone. He put the phone on the counter, letting it play on. "I despair of you, love. No one does cake like the Germans."

He turned on his heel and gestured to the treat with an elegant hand. If I didn't know better, I would have thought I was sitting in a fine restaurant instead of my apartment. With great pomp and circumstance, he solemnly declared, "This, my lady, is a genuine _Schwarzwaelder Kirschtorte_."

The words tripped off his tongue like music notes. Nothing harsh about it. I wondered if everybody could make German sound as good as Klaus did, or had I misjudged the language completely? I laughed despite myself. "What does that mean?"

He came forward, shaking his head as he pulled out a chair. "Black Forest Cake." He indicated I sit, and I did so. Not totally at ease, mind you, but distracted for the moment. "Heavy cream lightly sugared and whipped into a fine, delicious layer of frosting, followed by a layer of chocolate cake. It tenderly squeezes dark cherries in the middle like a precious secret, and that's only the beginning. It's an experience not to be missed."

I stared. "I've never heard anybody talk about cake like that."

"This isn't an ordinary cake. It's a masterpiece. Beauty in edible form. I'm nothing if not a lover of art."

There was an understatement. He'd practically made love to the cake verbally. If the baker lady had been in the room, I was pretty sure he would have kissed her in gratitude.

Bemused, I looked between it and him as Klaus bustled for plates and forks. I thought I heard him mutter something about lack of cake forks, whatever they were, and then he was back, sitting down. He was pleased as punch with himself.

With deft movements he cut into the cake. "No candles?" I asked.

"Superfluous in this instance." He handed me a plate. "This little darling needs no embellishments." He then served himself and picked up a fork, raising it like a glass of wine at me. "Happy Birthday, Caroline."

I had done stranger things. Going to school as a vampire. Falling for a werewolf with a deadly bite. Getting kidnapped by my dad _and_ my teacher and tortured. Asking a witch to do any number of mind-bending spells. Agreeing to date the second-oldest guy in the history of mankind.

Cake with a hybrid after two years of running from him? Nothing to it.

I gamely raised my fork and clinked it with Klaus'. Because I'm no coward. "Happy Birthday to me."

How to get myself out of the situation? I had no idea. That was a problem that was going to have to wait for at least another hour. I daintily cut a piece and put it in my mouth.

Oh. My. God.

It wasn't sweet. Now where near it. But it was creamy and chocolatey and packed so full of cherry goodness that I couldn't keep a moan from escaping my mouth. "This is..." If the baker lady really had been there, forget Klaus; I would have kissed her myself. "So much better than frozen cheesecake."

Not that frozen cake wasn't good. But this was on a new level entirely.

He smiled wide enough to show teeth. Why did people feel so pleased when someone liked what they liked? Guess it was one of those human qualities nobody really shook. Conversation came up short in the wake of my eating and the music playing against the thunder in the background. On a purely sublime level I was lost in the heaven that was Black Forest. Which made me think of Germany.

Which made me wonder what it was like.

Which made me think of traveling.

Which made me think of Klaus.

It didn't take a genius to figure out where my mind went to next.

By that point I had calmed down enough to assimilate everything that had happened. My blood no longer raced from the unexpected fight in the supermarket or the flat out bastardly way Klaus manipulated me in the hall. I was even sort of getting over the shock of talking to Mom. It was time to go into planning mode.

I excel with planning. Unfortunately I was forced to admit this was out of my usual scope. Essentially I had been pressed into a relationship with a guy under duress. Not without giving back some of my own, thank God. I had had the foresight to throw out conditions and he accepted. I couldn't help but wonder, though, if I should have laid down a few more. Like no touching, no kissing, no hanky panky.

Funny what a person realizes in hindsight.

I mean, really, this could go any way he wanted it. He had all the cards. Somehow I didn't think his idea of courtship and my idea of courtship were the same thing. Like he said, Klaus was no Darcy. He wasn't even Rochester. He was Hades, the guy who kidnapped a woman to marry him.

How did a girl undermine that kind of determination? Running again would be next to impossible. He'd no doubt have an eagle eye on me from that point on. Damon would say stake him, but Damon Salvatore was also the jerk who bit me six ways to Sunday for his pure, sadistic pleasure. The last thing I wanted to do was follow _his_ advice.

I used to think there was no one badder than Damon. My gaze darted to Klaus. Guess I was wrong.

Okay, so one Salvatore brother down, one to go. What would Stefan do? I chewed thoughtfully. Stefan would try to outsmart Klaus. Corner him, give him no choice but to retreat. Did I have anything I could use to my advantage?

Other than my gorgeous Miss Mystic Falls looks? Nada. No dagger, no cure, no witch. Just a hoodie, jeans, a few glue sticks and sparklies leftover from my last craft project. Frankly I didn't think Klaus was the kind of guy to let a little glitter ruin his day.

Oooh, what if I totally acted like a brat? Make the relationship a living hell. There were girls who just couldn't be pleased. I could draw on pre-vampire Caroline and take it up a notch. I knew Klaus well enough to know he'd never put up with that kind of thing.

Except he tended to snap the necks of people who annoyed him. I'd come back from it, but seriously, it's painful. Besides, it was probably only the first level of what he'd do to me.

I swallowed.

Okay, it wasn't totally fair to say that. I had seen the tender side of Klaus before. There were plenty of times he could have killed me and he didn't. Yeah, he'd bitten me. Yeah, he caused Tyler to bit me. Neither time I was ever going to forget. He'd killed Tyler's mom, Jenna, and a lot more people than I cared to name. If I'd stacked up all the times I played bait against the number of times he could have ended me and didn't...well, there was a reason I was shocked the second time he bit me.

Klaus had this dangerous ability to make me forget how much of a loose cannon he was. I had to remind myself until he went and added to the list. I was supposed to trust myself to a guy like that?

"Looking for a way out?"

"With everything I've got." My mouth dropped open. Oh god, I'd said that out loud!

His brow quirked. It wasn't leaping over the table and taking me out, but who knew what was going to happen? I tensed, waiting for the other shoe to fall.

"There isn't," he simply said. "Even if you hadn't given your word, love, you're intelligent enough to realize you've no option but to resign yourself."

"That's romantic," I countered dryly.

A slow heat sparked in his eye. "It would be if you would just relax."

I waved the fork around. "How am I supposed to do that? This isn't a normal relationship I've committed to here. People get together, yeah, but they break up too. Look at me and Matt."

He rolled his eyes. "The American boy wonder. I've seen him. So honorable and sincere. There's a Darcy for you."

"Whatever. He was sweet and I really liked him." I didn't want to say the other L word in case Klaus get any ideas. "But things changed and I had to let him go."

"Then came the reformed bad boy werewolf with an unfortunate habit of picking fights he couldn't win."

My temper flared. "Don't talk about him like that, okay? Just don't." I was going to stand my ground on that if it killed me.

He sighed, tongue tucked in his cheek. "Fine." He leaned forward on his elbows. "You were saying?"

"My point is that time changes things, people, and circumstances. Let's say I _relaxed,"_ I used bunny quotes as I said it, "and went with the flow. We've got more time than anyone else on earth. One day you're going to get tired of your shiny toy and then what? You'll rip my heart out?" I couldn't help the tiny piece of panic that wedged its way into my voice.

"You're overthinking."

"That's not an answer."

"Was the question not rhetorical?"

I huffed but said nothing. My glare was designed to say it all.

He toyed with his fork spinning it idly between his fingers. "Your problem, Caroline, is a lack of trust."

I pursed my lips. Seriously? He was going to go there?

"...which could be construed as a fault on my part." His frown intensified. "You haven't exactly been a paragon of honesty yourself."

I sat back. Point for Klaus. I wasn't going down that easily though. "This is nuts and you know it."

"Tell me, Caroline, how did you imagine our reunion would play itself out?"

"I didn't think there would be one."

His mouth molded itself into a smug smirk. "Oh, now that's not true a'tall." His lashes swept down to hood his eyes. "Somewhere deep down in that defiant little heart of yours," he murmured as he tried to stare at that organ through my chest, "you knew this day would come."

I crossed my arms in front of me self-consciously.

It didn't deter him. "I'm certain you envisioned copious amounts of blood spilled."

"Like it was in the hall?" I shot back. "Or the way you threatened to do after?" I suddenly had visions of collars and pets and rooms, harkening back to that unbelievable exchange practically on my couch. I wasn't dumb enough to draw his attention to it though.

"Ah." He held up the fork to stab the word in its place. "But none of it was yours, was it?" He set the utensil firmly on the tabletop. "Let's clear something up, shall we? You ran away. I have given chase. I've caught you. According to the laws of the jungle, that makes you mine. I don't damage what's mine."

My heartbeat was beginning to race again. I licked my lips nervously. "You repeatedly daggered your brothers and sisters. You killed your mother and your father. I hate to beat a dead horse, but you bit me twice with near fatal consequences."

His head tilted sharply, eyes on my lips. "Daggered but didn't kill. My father was a hardnosed bastard who tried to end me first. Saved your life both times." His fingers drummed. "You've got me on the mother issue, I'm afraid. Can't work up much regret in that area."

That did not make me feel better.

In that moment the music changed from something Beethoven could have written to a bouncy tune with words. It had a big band feel to it, starting with a flourish of piano keys and moving into a scratchy record, 1940s offering. It was totally at odds with the atmosphere between us. A woman started to croon about another day, another night. Despite myself I looked at the phone just as she met a man surrounded by friends.

_I know you don't love me, but still I burn for you_

_I know you don't love me, this flame won't die_

_It's true_

Oh, Jesus, I thought with foreboding. Not now.

My eyes slid to Klaus, feeling like the room had suddenly constricted a million degrees. He was watching me with _that_ look, the one I could have imagined with my eyes closed. I tried not to listen to the words or think about how much they applied to him. It was one of those strange moments where I could almost believe there was something higher at work, pushing me in his direction.

Or it was just because it was a song on his phone, one he could have picked on purpose for all I knew.

God, how _awkward._ It was like listening to an intimate conversation, a piece of Klaus' innermost thoughts that I wasn't sure I was prepared to hear. I didn't know where to look: him, the ceiling, the cake, or the floor. My cheeks stung with a blush. I tried desperately to find something to say, but a piece of cotton got stuck in my throat and stayed there.

Klaus stood, the chair scooting back with an audible screech. My heart jumped. I stood up without thinking about it, pure instinct leaping into action. I turned, ready to sprint faster than an Olympian. I don't know why—he could have gotten up to change the song—but I knew, I _knew_ that wasn't the case.

His arm came down like a bar in front of my hips, his hand on the plaster of the partition wall. He crowded me against it, chest to my shoulder, groin to my pelvic bone. He didn't press, didn't touch me anywhere else, but in that second all I could feel was his heat and the desire coming off of him in waves.

"There's nowhere to go," he told me softly. "Nowhere to hide." I felt his gaze burn into the side of my face. I couldn't make myself look at him. He too...too...much. Just too much for me.

I turned my face to get away from the tickle of his breath on my neck. "This isn't necessary." I tried to sound calm.

"Isn't it?" Fingers brushed my curls back, exposing me further. I felt more naked in that moment than if I'd gone skinny dipping. It was a terrible, confusing feeling. Just one more to add to the pile labeled 'Klaus'.

He could hear my heartbeat. I didn't have to ask to know that. All the things that made him the most powerful creature on earth made him just as deadly to my composure.

"Caroline," he whispered. It sounded rough, like he couldn't keep himself from saying it. I'd never heard my name in that kind of voice before. He leaned his forehead against my crown, lips millimeters from my ear.

I closed my eyes, terrified, tense, and resigned all at once.

"Would you care to dance?"

My eyes popped open and I twisted to look up at him. "What?"

Instead of answering, he took my hand and pulled, using me to execute a perfect spin before bringing me back to his chest.

I was having a hard time grasping the situation. "I thought..."

"I know what you thought. I am merely disinterested in further debate." His eyes bored into mine. "We are who we are, Caroline. Discussing the whys and wherefores is a useless exercise that I have no intention of indulging in."

He turned on his heel expertly, his other arm wrapped loosely around my waist so that I followed. "As far as I'm concerned," he rumbled, "this is the course we've plotted and there's no option but to see it through to the end."

Subject closed. He didn't say it, but it was there in the way he smiled purposefully and spun me into a sweetheart hold. To Klaus, the whole thing was a foregone conclusion. Resistance was futile.

Bemused and bewildered, I found myself dancing with a semi-psychotic hybrid in my kitchen, the lyrics of the song echoing eerily in my ears...

_Maybe you're missing the telepathy_

_There's a disconnection, you don't think of me_

_I don't really care because I disagree_

_'Cause I'm the only part that you don't see_

**To be continued...**

* * *

**Notes: **

**1. Caro Emerald-You Don't Love Me**

**2. Yes, I do know what the bad guy's name is in Star Trek: Into Darkness :)**

**3. A very small fraction of people who read this story leave reviews, yet those are the ones that keep me going. Thanks for taking the time to let me know what you think!**


	6. Chapter 6

She followed my lead as if she were born to do it.

I was not infatuated enough to believe that to be the case, but it certainly proved my point about our compatibility. One small hand clasped in mine, the other resting on my shoulder, she went through the twists and turns with nary a thought. I had no doubt the wheels of her mind were occupied with other matters.

When Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong took over for Caro Emerald, I resisted my girl's halfhearted attempt to withdraw. I pulled her closer and changed my tempo.

_The odds were a hundred to one against me_

_The world thought the heights were too high to climb_

_But people of misery never incense me_

_Oh I wasn't a bit concerned_

_For from history I had learned_

_How many many times the world had turned _

I nuzzled my face against the side of her face, breathing in her scent. My eyes slid shut in pleasure. I had always had a soft spot for this particular tune. Not only was it a lovely melody to dance to, it seemed to inadvertently illustrate some of my personal experiences.

_They all laughed at Christopher Columbus _

_when he said the world was round_

_They all laughed when Edison recorded sound_

_They all laughed at Will and his brother_

_when they said man could fly_

_They told Marconi wireless was a phony_

_It's the same old cry_

I snorted in amusement at the mention of the Wright Brothers and amended my statement. Personal experiences-with the exception of a few historical inaccuracies.

I swept Caroline effortlessly about the room. She was a wonderful dancer. A bit out of practice likely from lack of a suitable partner. Not many of the newest batch of humans appreciated the intimacies of formal dancing. I could completely blame them. Bumping and gyrating in a club to pounding bass was terribly fun, if mindless. It was not so far removed from the 'primitive' forms of dance from yesteryear. I had a vision of arching my body against Caroline's on a dark dance floor and my body tensed with barely suppressed desire. I nearly licked my lips, so delicious did I find the thought. To feel her like that would be...breathtaking.

I stepped back and twirled her, returning with my thigh neatly pressed to her groin when I maneuvered her round the chair. Her eyes widened ever so slightly. When Caroline wore heels, she could almost look me in the eye. In her quirky sneakers, however, she was cheek-to-forehead. Not too tall, not too short. Perfect for my purposes.

Varied and disparate as they were.

"You're not going to let this go, are you."

I raised a brow. Had I not already made that clear? Caroline was usually quicker on the uptake than this. Ah, denial. Such a powerful defense. Luckily my will far outstripped its potency.

She blinked once, twice. "This is going to happen no matter what."

"Now you're getting the idea." Whether or not this was the traditional acceptance stage of the night, I was pleased she was working through it.

"Nothing I say or do will convince you otherwise."

"Nothing whatsoever," I agreed amiably. Was it my imagination, or had her shoulders slumped just a little? I turned her again with a gentle press on the small of her back.

Her head lowered until it rested limply on her hand, pinning it between my body and hers. I didn't delude myself; this was no solicitation of comfort. This was realization pure and simple. The finality of the circumstances had finally made itself known to Caroline, and it made her weak at the knees as such things were wont to do. She leaned on the first pillar of strength she could find: me.

In my heart of hearts, the very essence of my complicated self, I warmed.

I laid my cheek upon her head. "You know, you're not without power in this arrangement." I was willing to allow her that. It was not my intention to terrorize Caroline. That would take a great deal more energy than I was willing to channel in that direction. I had other interests much better served by her cooperation.

Bait cast, I had only to wait milliseconds for Caroline to warily ask, "How?"

_They laughed at me wanting you _

_Said it would be "Hello, goodbye!"_

_But oh you came through_

_Now they're eating humble pie_

Ah, Ella. A woman who knew just how to tickle my fancies.

Caroline lifted her head, finally meeting my gaze. "Klaus? What do you mean I have power?"

I swayed from side to side. "Exactly that, love. This is a courtship. Thus I mean to beguile, confuse, entice, and ensnare you in as realistic a romantic fashion as I am capable of." I started to hum, enjoying the suspense.

She thumped me on the chest. "Would you spit it out already?"

I laughed. That! That was what I wanted. Her fire, which never failed to arouse me. Every Alpha male needed an Alpha bitch to head his pack. Subordinate to him, but still his match.

Let Darcy have his Elizabeth. I would welcome Persephone any day.

Pleased beyond words, I broke out of our dance and pressed her against the counter, shamelessly locking her in with an arm braced on each side. She slapped both hands on my chest and gave me a warning look, feet spread apart for balance. "Don't even think about it, Klaus."

"Oh, I'll think about it, Caroline," I purred, letting her see my lust. What reason did I have to hide it? She was mine. All mine. I reveled in the knowledge. Gloried in it. Rare euphoria made me playful.

She grew more determined. "Well, that's all you're going to do. I'm not hopping into bed with you, no matter how touchy feely you get."

"Yet you wonder in what way you hold power."

She tilted her head, unsure.

The heat between us was incredible. I felt every inch of her presence against me and yet we barely touched. Had I known nothing else about her, the power of our mutual attraction would have been enough to draw my interest.

I raised a hand and teasingly traced the line of her wrist. "Why do you think I never compel you, darling? No doubt you'll agree it would hardly be out of character for me. Instead I'm reduced to bargains and coercion." I pretended puzzlement. "Odd, isn't it, that I ask for dates and courtships instead of the usual virginal sacrifice."

"The effort would be wasted on a non-virgin?" she quipped.

I favored her with a look. "Caroline."

Her fingers curled slightly. "Alright. I get it. You want me willing. Sort of. What I don't get is why." She blew out a breath. "I can't believe I'm pointing this out, but you've got the upper hand. You could do anything you wanted."

"True." I could not help but approve when she pursed her lips like that. "The idea holds some appeal, or have you forgotten about the collar already?"

Her jaw tightened. I would take that as a no.

"I thought you would know by now that I'm not your traditional villain." I settled my hand on her hip, deliberately wrapping each finger around the bone with just the right amount of pressure. "I leave the cliches to the mediocre."

I looked into her eyes, sobering slightly under her scrutiny. "Let's not think of this in terms of bargains and bad guys," I offered, unable to control the husky note in my voice. I eased closer, noting with suppressed interest that she didn't push me away. "Let's simply consider it..."

The skin along her jaw was soft and smooth to the touch, and oh, how I loved to touch. I found myself caught up in the experience, half-forgetting what I wanted to say. I heard a slight change in her breathing. Whatever else had come between us, Caroline had never been quite able to ignore me. Her blue eyes were luminous, observing me closely. They were absent of every hostility and confusion.

"Consider it what?" Her voice was low, husky.

It was gratifying on a level I had not anticipated.

I leaned in ever so slightly, the moment suspended. Her lips were just beyond mine... "Foreplay," I whispered before smiling wickedly.

As long as I lived, I would never forget how utterly confounded Caroline appeared just then. In fact, I decided to immortalize it on paper the moment I left her presence.

Why waste an exit? "It's late," I noted with cheery tones. "Big day tomorrow, my love. Lots of plans."

Reaction was just starting to get the better of her. _"You—you-_"

Faster than a blink I cupped her face in my hands. "Until then, Caroline." I pressed a smacking kiss to her cheek and let go before she could do anything about it. To my great delight it only flummoxed her more.

She clapped a hand over her cheek. "Stop that!" she cried out in frustration. "Stand still like a normal person and talk to me!"

"Not a chance in hell," I tossed over my shoulder while striding to the door. To say I was satisfied with myself was an understatement of supernatural magnitude. I was exultant, high from my success. Caroline obviously didn't know what to make of me and for that I was superbly appreciative. I enjoyed any advantage I had over her.

A thought stopped me. "Ah!" I spun on my heel and reached out. Caroline snapped into a judo position she must have learned from too much television, only to gape when I reached behind her for my mobile. "Can't forget this."

"Klaus!" she called after me. "Don't you dare!"

I shut the door behind me with a flourish.

There was no containing my terrible glee.

Game on.

XXXXX

Big plans? FOREPLAY?

I rolled my head from side to side, face buried in my pillow, same as it had been for half an hour now. Good thing I didn't need to breathe. I would have suffocating in feathers by now. Better than being staked, but come on, who wanted to die like that?

Foreplay. God.

I'd replayed the entire afternoon in my head on a never ending loop from the first millisecond after Klaus left. What he did, what he said, what I did, what I said—everything. And I got nowhere with it. There had to be a better word than 'surreal' to describe everything, but I just couldn't come up with one without a dictionary.

He just—I just-

Foreplay?

Big plans?

I was in so much trouble.

I flopped over to my back and shoved my hair off of my forehead so that I could stare at the ceiling. I couldn't help but wonder if trouble was an understatement. Here were the facts: Klaus found me, he pressured me into being _courted_, there was no way out.

None.

So what did I do? Just go along with everything the way he wanted? I couldn't picture that. In a way I kinda didn't want to. Klaus did not exactly inspire squeaky clean imagery. Look what he said about the collars.

I had internet. I knew what that meant.

Okay, no way out but not following along like a mindless doll. Where did that leave me?

Part of me wanted to call Mom again. I wanted to hear her voice. I knew she'd answer. I mean, I was her daughter, right? Of course she'd answer. But as much as I loved the knowledge that I could call her again any time, any where, I didn't want to call her about this. God knew what she was thinking already. Telling her what I was doing with him would be stupid. She had a gun and she wasn't afraid to use it.

Klaus would not take getting shot kindly.

No, leaving Mom out of this was better. I'd make up something to say to let her know that I was okay. Call that part of growing up a little. Sixteen year old me would have whined and spilled the beans within 20 seconds. Now I had a bit more respect for my mother's state of mind. Sometimes you just didn't want to worry the ones you loved, no matter what situation you were dealing with.

I was on my own.

I blew out a breath. There wasn't a tutorial for this kind of situation, so I was going to have to wing it. If I wasn't going to be a mindless doll and I couldn't get away with being a brat, that only left one option: putting my best foot forward. That's what I did with Matt as a human. It's what I did with Tyler, and that had the added bonus of werewolf-ery thrown in. Wasn't that was I should do with Klaus? He wanted to date me. It made sense he would have to date the _real_ me.

One thing was clear: dwelling on the start of the relationship was not going to help. I couldn't do change it, so I had to let it go and try to make the best of the situation I'd been given.

I rolled to my side.

But not dwelling didn't mean forgiving. Just like I wasn't going to forgive Jenna dying, or Tyler's mom, or Tyler being forced to leave town. Klaus had to be made accountable for the damage and changes he'd inflicted. Two years away from my mom had put Tyler's loss into much keener perspective. Sure, Dad dying hadn't been easy, but he'd made his own choice. Carol Lockwood got held under water until she drowned.

Thinking about it started to make me angry. I had to use the vampire compartmentalization trick to square it away. If I was going to get anywhere, I had to set all that aside. Yeah, it sucked, but that was reality.

Back to the battle plan.

The way I saw it, Klaus was willing to allow me some boundaries. I'd watched enough Nat Geo to know that solidifying those boundaries was priority number one in the jungle mentality. I had to draw my line, lay a few bricks, cement that baby, and then rig it with TNT if I was going to have equal footing and respect from the oldest twenty-something in history.

This was going to go at my pace, I decided firmly. And if Klaus didn't like it-

Well, I didn't know exactly what I would do in that case, but it made me feel better to have some kind of goal in mind.

That night I laid there for a long time, thinking about how I was going to proceed from then on. I tried not to think too much about the sexual part of things, but it eventually had to be considered. He wasn't going to jump me, but Klaus made it clear that he expected sex at some point. People always worked at different paces in that department, but it was pretty safe to say that sex always popped up in a relationship.

How did I feel about that?

I didn't really know.

In the beginning I didn't want to be touched by anybody. The wound of Tyler leaving was still too raw, and I was one of those girls that felt loyal to a memory, even though I'd told him to forget me. God, how painful that had been. But time marched on. I didn't like it, and I knew that two years would probably be a drop in the ocean of my lifespan, but I still felt its passing.

I felt lonely.

So I tried to make myself feel better by sleeping with someone else. I felt guilty the first time. I think people who'd lost their husbands or wives probably felt the same way, the first time they slept with someone else. Like they were cheating. I felt like a cheater. But I wasn't, and that made me feel even worse somehow.

That particular guy wasn't someone special. It was a same place, same empty feeling thing. To be honest, I couldn't remember his name, but I could picture his face. He was nice. He wanted me, and that made me feel good. I did remember that he'd just broken up with his girlfriend, so maybe I made him feel good too. He was gone before I woke up the next morning, but he had bought me breakfast and left a nice note with it on a tray, making him a pleasant memory.

The second time was easier. Lasted a little bit longer, and the guilt was a little less. The third time was a short lived romance that I could now say was just a fling to get my toe back in the water. Once that ended, I felt more like me, less like a girl missing her boyfriend. By then I started to genuinely hope that Tyler was having the same experiences, that he was growing used to our separation and starting a new life.

If at first I wanted him to move on out of a sense of noble idiocy, by now I realized that things had just...ended. It was sad and bittersweet, but I couldn't think of a way we could have done more. If I'd gone with him, Klaus would have murdered him for sure.

And sometimes, if I think about it, I can't remember if Tyler ever asked me to go with him. Maybe he did. Maybe it was better that I didn't remember. The fact was that I was here, and he was somewhere else. End of story.

If that ever changed in the future, I'd deal with it then.

So while I wasn't holding back out of some sense of loyalty to Tyler (per se), I couldn't quite wrap my mind around sleeping with Klaus either. Objectively, yes. I may be blonde, but I wasn't blind: I knew Klaus was attractive, even a hottie by many, many standards. If I didn't know anything about him and just saw those pretty lips and the way he moved, I probably would have melted right then and there.

But I did know him, and what they say about women connecting feelings with sex wasn't total bull. Animal instinct would take care of a lot of things in the heat of the moment, but what about the morning after? Could I just let go and not regret it? Not feel like the biggest betrayer in the history of betrayers?

It was the million dollar question. One that, unfortunately, I had no answer to.

I could turn it off. Just lock it all away until I didn't care anymore. Stefan did it with Elena. Damon did it with...everybody else. I could too.

I didn't want to. I liked myself. I wanted to _be_ myself, if that made any sense. Klaus said that he wanted me willing. Well, he'd get me. If not willing, then at least not being a coward—that meant totally present and emotionally accounted for.

There were a lot of things left to consider, but by that point I was so mentally exhausted I considered just shutting my eyes and going to sleep in my clothes. I managed to drag myself and toss and kick off all the essentials, but after that I flopped back and let dreamland take me.

At three oh three in the morning my phone rang, startling me out of my sleep. I groped for it on the nightstand and squinted. I didn't recognize the number, but then again, I'm not the sharpest tooth in the smile at three am. I pressed the button and held it to my ear. "Hello?"

"Caroline? It's me."

I blinked. "Mom?"

"What's going on?

Joy and confusion shot through me. "How did you get this number?"

"Klaus." There was a lot of meaning behind that one word, and it brought me out of my groggy state faster than a cup of coffee. "That's what worries me," she continued. "Caroline, baby, are you...okay?"

"Yeah Mom, yeah, I'm fine. I just..." I turned on my side and sighed. I should have known Mom wouldn't just let it go. She was a cop. It was, like, against her biological makeup to let sleeping vampires lie. "Things are strange. I can't go into a lot of detail," I hurried to add, "and I can tell you I'm not compelled. You don't have to worry about that."

She snorted. "What do I have to worry about, then, besides my daughter hanging out with an immortal as dangerous as him? They haven't made a name for the kind of crazy Klaus is."

I rolled my eyes. "Tell me about it." Okay, maybe that wasn't exactly what I should have said, but I was enjoying this mother/daughter communing moment, despite all the extra stuff. "Klaus and I worked out a deal. He didn't hurt me. I don't think he wants to."

"Thinking and knowing are two different things." Her voice lowered. "Can you run again?"

I sat up, somber. "No, Mom, I don't think I can."

Silence. I guess we both needed a second to absorb the full meaning of that. It was a pretty heavy beat. I just listened to her breathe, grateful I got that much again.

When she spoke again, her voice was stronger, surer. "Alright. So what's the plan?"

I had to smile a little bit. I had to get my bossy planner nature from someone. "I'm going to take it one day at a time. Klaus and I have some issues to work out, but I have an idea of what I want to do and say. He'll listen." To my amazement, I sounded totally sure of that.

Mom? Not so much. "Do you know what you're doing?"

"As much as anybody can in my situation." I paused. "How are Bonnie and Elena?" I hadn't asked earlier. It seemed too sensitive of a subject to bring up in Klaus' hearing range.

"They're fine. Those Salvatore brothers keep finding trouble to get themselves in. A few werewolves moved into town, so the workload's doubled. Had to hire a few extra people." She took a deep breath. "Baby, I'm going to ask one more time, and I want you to be honest with me. Are you okay?"

Jesus. Something about that question, the way she asked knowing full well she might not like the answer, brought tears to my eyes. I squeezed them shut and concentrated on keeping my voice steady. "Yes, Mom. I'm alright. I promise."

She exhaled. "Okay." I could imagine her nodding. "Okay."

"Can I talk to you tomorrow?" I couldn't carry on a conversation without busting into tears, but I wanted to know that she'd be there if I needed her.

"I go on duty late, so I'm free in the morning."

"I'll call you. Skype."

"Alright."

Again there was silence. Neither one of us wanted to say goodbye. My hands were shaking with the effort of holding it in. I licked my lips. "I'll talk to you in a few hours, Mom."

"Okay, baby," she said softly. "Talk to you soon. I love you."

The burning behind my eyeballs got hotter. "I love you too. Night."

"Night."

I pushed the End button.

And then I cried.

**To be continued...**

* * *

**Notes:**

1. Ella Fitzgerald/Louis Armstrong-They All Laughed

2. This is dedicated to the remarkable Sara, who has been my friend through thick and thin.

3. This is unbetaed, so I apologize for any mistakes I might have missed.

4. A very special thank you to Astra 12, SkyBlue1309, jessnicole, arabella, and all the other lovely people who took the time to review this story as they read. I really appreciate your feedback-as they say, it's the only way fanfic writers get paid!


	7. Chapter 7

It was good to cry. Freeing. The last two years weren't tearless, but this felt a lot different, like an anchor had been cut loose and I was drifting out to sea. I could either put up a sail, or let the water take me where it wanted.

I was going to sail.

It was the force of that decision that gave me the strength to be up early, showered and dressed when Klaus knocked on my door. I pulled it open without hesitating.

He took one look at my puffy cheeks and bit out a blunt, "Why?"

Trust Klaus not to politely ignore signs of crying. My chin went up. "Because I needed to." I stepped back and opened the door wider. "Come on. I've got BLTs on the table and orange juice."

He was instantly suspicious. "You made breakfast."

"It's brunch," I pointed out. "Are you coming in or not? My roommate will be back tonight and I want to get everything settled by then. Might as well eat while we do it."

He looked down at the coffee and donuts he held, then back at me. His wary expression didn't change. "Somehow I did not expect this sort of reception, Caroline." His gaze sharpened. "Anything you'd care to tell me?"

Step one: establish control. "Come in or not. Your choice." I let go of the door but left it wide open when I turned on my heel. It was a risk, yeah, but part of me knew he wasn't going to pass up the chance to find out just what I was up to.

That's why I was always the bait. No matter where I went, Klaus followed.

xxxxx

She was up to something.

Of course, I was willing to admit that I had an over-developed sense of paranoia. A millenia of experience and all that.

The smell of bacon was strong in the apartment. Caroline had left the balcony door open to air the place out, and a wind was gently lifting the sheer curtain. The sun was strangely bright after the storm yesterday. I _had_ taken it as a positive sign. I saw then that I had let my happiness color my perception.

I quickly scanned my surroundings, looking for any indication that not all was as it seemed. It appeared the same as it had last night, however, and that left me with no alternative but to proceed.

I stepped over the threshold.

Caroline moved with the determined grace that I had long admired in her, her gray utilitarian long sleeves enticing despite the circumstances. It was something a lumberjack might have worn. A very sexy, curvaceous lumberjack with an ass a man would kiss the ground for.

I shook my head at my fanciful thoughts. I was very much a besotted fool in the depths of my mind. I had no issue with showing that side to Caroline from time to time, but one did not display such feelings for the general public and expect to remain in power for long. Love was a weakness. A horrifying, permanent target painted over one's heart. Should someone get a whiff of this particular ailment, the wolves would be crowding the doorstep.

I was prepared for that eventuality. The best way to protect this soft spot, my lady, was to have any number of contingency plans in place. It did not, however, relieve me of a terrible fury that kindled and grew in my heart when I thought of harm coming to Caroline.

I wonder at times if that was the reason I had entered that period of bloodlust two years ago. Lashing out in anger, yes, but also raging against my own helplessness. Without Caroline in my sight, far out of my reach, I could not protect her. In the few lucid moments of those months I was tormented by any number of scenarios.

Caroline reuniting with Tyler in some exotic locale.

A rogue werewolf deciding to sharpen his teeth on a fledgling vampire.

Caroline holding some faceless man.

A witch with a vampire vendetta.

Caroline forgetting her daylight ring.

Anything. Everything. Then the clarity would fade and I would return to building my formidable reputation to new heights. I lost myself to it. Reveled. Faded into hedonism with gratitude.

Caroline was now less than three feet from me. Hybrids had watched her apartment all night. I would keep her near. I would keep her alive.

I would simply...keep her.

It was that certainty that allowed me to confront a piece of self-deception.

I had lashed out in helplessness-because I could not make Caroline love me.

To know that I, the most powerful creature on the planet, could not tempt her, a fledgling (a vampire so new that she still existed in the same decade she had been _created)_ was bitterly galling. I railed against my impotence. I rejected the burning constriction in my chest and the twisting knot in my stomach. I sought to assuage it in any manner I deemed suitable.

I do not deal well with inadequacy. There is no weapon against it, no violence strong enough to deter it, no bottle deep enough to drown it. I was never enough for my father. For a thousand years my failures were narrated in his derisive voice. Caroline's voice was sweet and smoky, but no less devastating in its effect upon me.

"Klaus?"

I looked up, surprised to realize I had stopped walking. I stood in the middle of her living room, the bookcase of treasures on my right. I glanced at it. _Pride and Prejudice_ was tilted to the side, waiting to be read for perhaps the millionth time.

I shoved the box of donuts in front of it, then set the coffee down next to it for good measure. No matter what came, I wanted both of my hands free to deal with it.

I shut the door and followed Caroline with renewed purpose.

The plates were on the table, glasses placed beside a pitcher of water and carton of orange juice. The makings of the BLTs were readily available, awaiting my presence. It was all very civilised and ordinary.

I was immediately on my guard.

She indicated I sit and did the same, resolution evident in every line of her body. "I want to talk," she declared.

I quirked a brow. "I hadn't realized."

"Okay, Mr. Snarky, reign in the commentary. I thought really long and hard about this last night. You can't deny that we have a lot of stuff to work out."

She began to put together her breakfast as she spoke. I watched her carefully before following suit, albeit at a more leisurely pace. Meat was a main source of sustenance before that fateful day a thousand years ago, so I appreciated the inclusion of a pork-related food. Vegetables, in my day, were what one ate when times were hard, when the animals had moved on and hunting fruitless. Their ability to sate did not negate the pleasure the bounty of meat brought.

I was merely uncertain as to why Caroline felt charitable enough to feed me. I was under the impression she was less than happy with me when I took my leave.

It wasn't until she took a bite that I did the same.

She made a little sound of pleasure as she chewed, swallowing a bit too quickly so that she could continue our 'talk'. "I'm ready to start new."

I stifled my burst of pleasure. All it took was a glance at her swollen cheeks. "Is that so?" I asked coolly. "And how did you arrive at that decision?"

"It wasn't easy." She poured herself water. "I mean, come on, you're you and I'm me. This isn't something I was mentally prepared for." She took a drink. "But if we do this right, it might be good."

"What constitutes right?"

"Rules."

I thought as much. "It's too late for conditions, my love. The game is mine."

Her gaze zeroed in on me. "It's not a game," she said flatly. "It's my life and our future. So have the decency to hear me out."

I lowered my chin, staring at her hard. I did not react to her use of 'our'. "What do you want, Caroline?"

"I meant what I said about not sleeping with you. I'm not even used to the idea of being in the same room as you, much less sex. Not that I'm not willing to be with you," she added quickly, perhaps noting my darkening disposition. "I'm just not ready for the hot and heavy stuff yet. So let's take it slow and play it by ear. Alright?"

Not an entirely unexpected demand. She had said as much previously. Agreeing did not preclude my ability or agency to convince her otherwise. "I reserve the right to beguile you."

"But not pressure," she tossed back. "Don't be that guy."

I favored her with a wicked smile. "Darling, there is certainly no fear of that."

She rolled her eyes. "Do you agree or not?"

I sighed. "Agreed." I poured my own glass of water. It certainly wasn't coffee, but I was unwilling to leave the table and her presence to fetch the cup in the living room. "Next?"

"I want to be treated like a lady."

I paused. "Was there any doubt of that?"

"I mean I don't want to be your possession. I want to be more than your—I don't know. Thing."

"Caroline," I said slowly. "Are you laboring under the idea that I view you as an object?"

She didn't flinch at my tone. "You tell me."

My jaw worked. "Did I not state just last night that you have power in this courtship?"

"You can't deny that you have a habit of making unilateral decisions and expecting other people to just follow what you say. I'm not a hybrid, I'm not sired to you, and I'm not your slave. I am your-" she hesitated. "Your girlfriend."

There was a beat of silence as that word fell between us. It was such an inadequate title for what this girl was to me, yet I had no better substitute for her then. None that she wanted to hear, at any rate.

"So you have to talk to me," she rushed on. "Treat me like the other half of a relationship. That means maybe giving up a little bit of ground when you don't want to. I'll have to do the same. I'm in it to win it, and that means communicating and making mutual decisions that benefit us."

Ah. The modern American ideal. Honesty and communication.

"The question is, can you do that?"

Can? Certainly. Wanted to? That depended on the circumstances.

That would not appease Caroline, cultivated in the society I found myself in. I did not disparage her idea, per se. There was a lot of sense in the concept. If Caroline encountered a difficulty, I wanted to know about it. She was not, however, quite ready to handle the weight of the decisions I was forced to make from time to time. Truth be told, I did not want her to be touched by that part of my life. It was not necessary for her to know the bloody details of my less than savory transactions. I was determined to keep her untouched by the ugliness.

Did that conflict with my desire for her acceptance? Perhaps, but the point was moot. I would not allow Caroline to be dirtied. So I smiled and answered honestly, "Yes."

She absorbed that, nodding to herself as if I had inadvertently also answered another, unspoken question. She looked at the table, her half eaten breakfast left forgotten. She had been so intent on her litany that she had not realized how much she had consumed in a short amount of time. I was pleasantly surprised by that part of her personality. It seemed Caroline ate when she was nervous.

This morning had not gone quite the way I had anticipated, yet I could not call it a disappointment. Caroline had confronted me with that bravery I had long admired in her. This was her attempt to assert herself. I had not realized how much I had missed observing her strength. It was not in her to wilt away like a delicate flower. A worthy mate.

There was several minutes of silence. Caroline glanced from the table to me, then back, her hands on the surface. I watched her fingers flex against the wood, the knuckles fading from white to peach to white again. She was nervous. Now what else could possibly be going through that agile mind?

She took a sip of water and swished it in her mouth, eying me all the while. "Caroline," I said patiently, "what are you doing?"

She swallowed, setting the glass down with no small amount of determination. "Getting ready."

Quite the cryptic answer. Here I thought we had reached some level of understanding.

Her lips puckered adorably, Caroline visibly wrestled with an internal decision. She was not as adept at her poker face as I, and whatever was running through her mind gave her considerable pause. The water had no vervain, the BLT was surprisingly delicious, and thus far Caroline had conducted herself in her usual point-blank manner.

I leaned back and crossed my arms. I saw little harm in waiting her out, and prepared myself to be entertained. "For what, my love, are you readying?"

She gnawed on her lower lip. A crime in itself. "Look, just sit there. Don't move." She stood with a scrape of her chair.

"You'll have to do better than that, love." I canted my head.

She walked around the table. "Just trust me okay?"

I hummed.

She hesitated, her eyes narrowing. "Listen, you're asking me to trust you despite everything. Are you seriously going to make that a one way street?" She planted her little hands on her hips, delivering a warning look of such ferocity that I was mildly taken aback.

Did I trust Caroline? Not entirely. Perhaps it was better to say that I trusted her up until the point she betrayed me again.

My silence was not met passively. "Do you know what your problem is? You expect me to do all the compromising. That's not happening here, buddy. If you want this to work, you meet me halfway or we might as well just give up before we even start." She glared.

"You're very free with your orders." Not a situation I found amusing at all.

"It's not up for discussion," she shot back. "We are partners or we're nothing."

Oh, I could think of a thousand different variations of what we were. Of what we could be. Most of which would make beauteous Caroline pale with dread. Should I tell her? Describe how lovely I found the thought of being her master? How enticing the idea of her well-being entrusted solely to me was?

No, I decided. The first would be my little secret. The second...simply understood. An undercurrent of truth in our relationship, one might say. Caroline _did_ belong to me. I would protect her by any means necessary, in any method I pleased. Trust had little to nothing to do with it.

I recognized the moment as my Rubicon. Whatever point I chose to cross at would affect my path from then on. I could either put my faith in Caroline's hands and trust her not to break it again. Or I could keep my heart right where it was, in my chest, protected.

Untouched.

I searched her face. She was immoveable, resolute in her decision. She was prepared to meet me in the middle. Was I willing to do the same?

My lips parted. "What," I asked solemnly, "do you want me to do?"

For a second she was unmoving, watching me as if she expected me to take it back. That was no surprise. What _was_ surprising was my own reaction. A piece of ice centered itself in my breast. Was I that worthless in her eyes? That dishonorable?

A reflexive sneer nearly curled my lip—and then she smiled tentatively, a breathy sigh of relief escaping filling the air. She looked...happy. "Okay."

The ice dispersed, leaving me strangely bereft.

It was then that it struck me how habitual my reaction had been. In the wake of that realization came the knowledge that Caroline was right. We needed to move on, truly begin again. To do otherwise was to be caught in a cycle that was comfortable but damaging.

In that millisecond of time I saw what it was to have Caroline approve of me. To be pleased with me. I wanted that. I craved it.

Temporarily overwhelmed by the power of that desire, I stared unblinking as she positioned herself in front of my chair. She looked down at me with a wary warmth I was instantly addicted to, licking her lips nervously. "Don't move," she ordered. "Don't take this for more than it is. If you so much as twitch, this is done, got it?"

She did not wait for an answer but reached out to cup my face in her hands. I was frozen, unwilling to believe the suspicion that had begun to take hold. Her skin was so soft, so gentle. I could smell her citrus lotion with each breath, not daring to move. Caroline tilted my head up just so.

She bent.

And kissed me.

_Thumthump_. I was glued to my seat, stilled by my astonishment, my incredulity, staring at blond curls with wide open eyes. Her nose pressed against my cheek. For a moment I heard nothing but my own heartbeat. Then the sensations hit.

Petal soft lips, firm and confident against my own. I had never credited the power of a mouth before, but she held me helpless with hers. Her scent drifted up. She teased the rasp of beard on my cheeks, her fingers caressing my visage soothingly. It was as if she was attempting to calm me.

She failed. I was consumed. Lost. I felt it in every part of me.

How long did it last? I have no idea. Not long enough to close my eyes. Long enough to change everything.

She broke the kiss with another stroke on my face, pulling back to stand but maintaining contact. Her cheeks were flushed a pretty pink, her mouth tinged with evidence of its recent antics. She bit her bottom lip, smug and shy at the same time.

Caroline had kissed me. It was short, it was sweet, but it had happened.

Happiness crashed over me so quickly I was unprepared. It pushed all the air from my lungs. I was drowning in it.

It was terrifying and freeing all at once.

Her blush heightened. She cleared her throat awkwardly and nearly moved away.

I seized her wrists, unwilling to let her go. She had come to me, damn her, and now she was caught.

Everything was different. I could not fully articulate the extent, as it had yet to completely manifest itself in my conscious mind. That would come another day. At that moment I let myself drink her in, burrowing my face in her warmth. My hands spread to cover hers, memorizing their size and shape.

She gazed down at me, lips parted, watching me as closely as she could. Was she aware of how delicious she looked to me? I doubted it. Even I could not put the feeling in my chest into words. I only knew two things with absolute certainty.

Caroline Forbes was my lady.

That would not be our last kiss.

xxxxx

I thought I knew what 'Intense Klaus' looked like.

I was wrong.

Kissing him had taken a lot of courage. It was a scary step. Basically I was acknowledging the change in our relationship. Taking it to the next level. It was important that I show where I stood. Then there was that stupid second where I thought it was all going to go horribly wrong before it really began and I nearly lost my gumption.

But he surprised me, and it was about an important issue on top of that. More than a little awesome, it gave me real hope for the first time.

The kiss was...well, a lot of things. Scary. Weird. Thrilling. Nice. Really, really nice.

I didn't know that he smelled good. Like, his skin—natural, no holds barred hybrid Klaus. His mouth was just the right shape for mine. Mouths were all kinds of shapes and widths, usually proportionate to how tall a guy was. Don't ask me why that was. It was just my experience.

Klaus was taller than me, but he wasn't treetop tall. His mouth had been warm and pliant, melting into mine like it belonged there.

Hence the scary.

Weird because it was Klaus, and I'd never thought the day would come when I would willingly initiate a kiss.

Thrilling because he was the second-oldest guy on earth. There's a lot of power in that.

And now I was the object of a look so possessive and hot that it amped the pleasant hum of my blood up a thousand degrees. My mouth went dry. That conversation about collars came rushing back. My sense of power shrunk back, reminding me that I was a lot younger and weaker than this mine. There was a lot he could do to me, and it was only on his say so that I could feel safe.

He turned his head without breaking eye contact and pressed a kiss to my palm, way too close to my wrist. My skin started to feel prickly. Was he smelling me? I tried to draw back, but he stopped me again, eyes flashing in light warning.

Okay then. If a close-mouthed kiss could make him act like this, how was he going to react when we had sex?

_If_. _If_ we had sex.

Oh man. I was in deep, deep trouble. I inhaled. "Klaus, you have to let me go."

"No."

No hesitation. No negotiation. I licked my lips again and forced myself to be light when I said, "We can't stand here all day."

His finger stroked mine. "Then what shall we do, my love?" Deep and throaty.

Heat flashed in parts better not mentioned. Whoa mama. Time to put the brakes on, stat. "We can..." What? I wracked my brain. "Eat the donuts you brought? Finish the cake from yesterday?" An idea. "Plan a date?"

His finger paused in its stroking. "A date."

"Yeah." I tentatively moved my thumb, tracing the line of his cheekbone. We were so close. If he turned even a little, I would be standing between his legs instead of beside him. "You did say this was a courtship, right? So, you know, court me."

Klaus smiled big. The heat of his gaze changed; I could tell he still wanted me, but he was warm at the idea of a social occasion that didn't involve blackmail or the Salvatores planning something sneaky. "Caroline Forbes, would you do me the honor of accompanying me to the park this evening?"

I frowned slightly. "The park?" Not dinner? No jet to Paris?

"There is a tea shop at the end of the rose garden. Have you ever smelled roses after the rain?"

I was intrigued. "No."

"Then come with me."

I tilted my head, considering. "That sounds a lot more ordinary than what I expected."

He let go of one of my hands but not the other. It was like he just wanted to keep touching me. He wasn't so intense now, but not for a second did I think I'd seen the last of that expression. Klaus was not that kind of guy. "There is nothing ordinary about me, Caroline."

No truer statement had ever been uttered.

**To be continued...**

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**Note:**

1. Once again, a major 'thank you' to all who review, especially arabella, Astra, and all the people who made this fic worth writing. Fanfic writers are only paid in reviews, and the quality of your 'payments' warms the cockles of my heart :)

2. This fic is dedicated to my friend Sara. Seriously, without her, ya'll would have had nothing to read at the start.


	8. Chapter 8

Sometimes you just know things. Nobody has to spell it out for you. Basic animal instinct allows a person to assimilate unconscious signals and put it together in a picture anybody could read.

I knew dating Klaus would be a lot like dating a mob boss. Not something I ever wanted to do, but there I was, in his SUV, being driven around by two hybrids. Klaus sat beside me in the backseat, absolutely comfortable with their presence. He was even holding my hand in the space between us. He'd helped me into the car like a gentleman, and now we were headed off to a romantic date underneath a sky that looked like a blanket of blue.

It sounded too ideal to be true, and in a way it was. Klaus was no fluffy bunny. More like a saber-toothed tiger content to lick its paw for the time being. You could never really forget how dangerous he could be.

Except that I sometimes did. More than once in the past I got too comfortable with the facade he presented me, occasionally with deadly consequences. He was capable of horrifying acts. When I kissed him in my kitchen, I was also trying to prove that I was strong enough to handle that part of him too. Not that I wanted him to go around ripping people to pieces or causing mayhem. I just wanted to say that this time I had my eyes wide open. No forgetting, no rose-colored glasses. I was now with a very dangerous person. A dangerous person who made me a promise that I had to believe he'd keep.

He'd broken his word before, when circumstances suited him. If I didn't want another person to die, I had to make sure the circumstances don't change.

He was right, though. I did have power. His reaction to the kiss proved that. He wanted me enough to chase me for two years and make a bargain. More than that, Klaus loved me.

It was a dark and twisted emotion coming from him, but it wasn't without its pure, happy points either. He would take me anywhere in the world if I asked. He would dig up treasures and introduce me to cultures I had only read about. He would even just remember my birthday without having to be reminded and buy me a one-of-a-kind treat.

All I would have to do was be with him.

I wanted to believe I was strong enough to handle what that meant.

"You're awfully quiet."

I turned my head from the window and found him watching me intently. I just smiled a little, not wanting to get into another discussion so soon. For a little while I just wanted to turn my brain off and enjoy the moment.

His eyes dropped to my lips, and the heat in his eyes sharpened. He was thinking about the kiss, I realized, a blush climbing on my cheeks. I felt like a total idiot for being embarrassed, but come on—what girl could really be on the other end of that look and not be affected? I'm a vampire, not brain dead.

I bit my lip and stared at anything but him, focusing on the back of the headrest in front of me.

Klaus made a little sound of amusement and squeezed my hand.

Then he lifted it to his lips and kissed my knuckles.

My pulse jumped. There was suddenly not enough space in the car. The air felt thick and heavy all around me. Where was the park, again? Longest car ride ever.

I almost melted in relief when we eased out of traffic and pulled up to a curb. The park was still a walk off, but not so far that I couldn't see the hedged entrance. There were quite a few people, everybody out to enjoy the crisp sunshine despite the cooler weather. I was only wearing my gray long sleeves and a denim jacket with my dark wash jeans. I hadn't dressed up. I hadn't had time, actually. Klaus had decided evening was too far away and pulled me out of the apartment a few minutes after he made the suggestion.

He sure didn't waste any time.

He opened the door and slid out of the car, holding a hand out for me. I scooted over and, unlike last time, took him up on his offer. When I was standing next to him on the pavement he leaned over and said a few words to the hybrid driving. I never bothered to learn their names, and I didn't bother to listen to what Klaus had to say now. I was busy looking at the food stalls in front of the park entrance. The smell of roasted, sugared nuts was strong. Mmm, almonds.

Klaus came to stand beside me and picked up my hand again, the SUV pulling away to slide back into traffic. "They aren't sticking around?"

"They'll come if I call. I can rely on my own skills for a few hours." He began to walk, stroll really, towards the archway.

I was content to follow. "Isn't it a little late for roses?"

"They'll have some life left in them yet. Don't worry; I will make good on my promise." From the significant glance he cast my way, I knew he was referring to more than the date.

So he'd known what I was thinking about it. Fair enough. He'd always been able to see through me. I was only bait that many times because he wanted me to be. "You'd better," I let myself tease. "I have my heart set on it now."

"Do you," he murmured. "The stakes are high indeed."

We turned a corner, and there it was, the rose garden. It was beautiful. Different shades of yellow, red, and pink mingled in the green. Once we got past the archway the smell really took over. I think pungent is the word. It smelled like grass and rose and dirt and rain, the combination nothing I'd ever really experienced before. "Oh," I sighed, "that's so pretty." I closed my eyes and inhaled. "How did you know this was here?"

"I make it my business to learn new neighborhoods. One never knows what gems lay hidden in the chaos."

"This was definitely worth the trip." I opened my eyes again and looked up at him, smiling in approval. "Thanks for bringing me."

He didn't smile, but I think he wanted to. "Thank you for coming," he replied formally. "Come along; there's more to see."

There was. Miles of roses formed all kinds of interesting shapes and nooks here. Somebody had spent a lot of time designing and cultivating this place. We walked for a little while, strolling in silence. There were a lot of people out. Families and couples, even a few photogs trying to capture the different varieties Klaus told me were there. I couldn't tell one flower from the other. To tell the truth I wasn't sure I wanted to learn, but I liked listening to Klaus talk about them. I really shouldn't have been surprised he knew something about the subject. He seemed to know a little of everything. I guess when you have nothing but time, you learn a thing or two along the way.

He held my hand the entire time, but at one point he wrapped it around the crook of his arm. Old school. Literally.

He looked relaxed, kind of like the boyish version of him I saw on our date when he read my Miss Mystic Falls application. I never did figure out how he got that.

"Does this look anything like the gardens in Europe?"

"Surprisingly, yes. The landscaper must have spent a lot of time studying his predecessors. It's refreshingly traditional."

"You know, I've always gotten the impression that you're a guy who likes modern stuff."

He patted my hand, and I became aware of his biceps flexing beneath my fingers. He was no Buff McBufferson, but Klaus had the tight, wiry build of a swimmer. He could pound most beefcakes into the ground with barely any effort anyway. "Does loving one mean I cannot appreciate the other?"

"No," I allowed, "but finding traditionalism 'refreshing' does spell out a certain—I don't know—dissatisfaction?"

"I admire progress. I certainly don't long for outdoor plumbing and fear of bathing. Yet some things are beautiful just as they are." He winked at me. "I'll never be a fan of modern art, for example."

"You're kidding."

"Too jagged and nonsensical for my taste. Paintings of a soup can? I could draw that with my feet."

"Whoa, a little full of ourselves there, are we?"

"I merely wish to point out that it has no life. No spirit or soul or beauty. It represents nothing more than a soup can."

I'm no fan of modern art myself, but I feel compelled not to let him have his way. "Some people really go for that."

"Do you?"

Damn. End of that discussion. "No."

"What does the comely former Miss Mystic Falls appreciate in art, then?"

I wrinkled my nose. "Not a fan of Picasso. Not really an Impressionist. Don't like the one with the person screaming-"

He chuckled.

"I like colors," I finish. "Really bold colors, like the blue we've got right now. I used to really like the pictures in art history class when we were talking about the Middle Ages. Some were gorgeous, but the people looked so...depressed."

He nodded. "It could be depressing at times. Fear of God's wrath and all that. It was all very literal."

"What about you?" Did he ever believe in organized religion? It's not like he would have had much room for other ideas. People live the life they're handed, even if they are immortal.

"I was very much a man of the times, though I cannot say that I was as likely to attribute each natural disaster to a higher power. One learns to differentiate between the supernatural and an unfortunate chain of events," he finished with an offhand wave before pointing ahead. "There is the tea shop, love."

I looked over in surprise. Did we walk through the entire park already?

Sure enough, we had. Across a path that cut in front of our own was a building covered in vines. It had a terrace and an awning on one side, with little bistro tables and chairs underneath. It looked very Mediterranean. "Another one of those gems you discovered?"

"Never underestimate the charms of being a tourist in your own town, Caroline."

We walked over. In no time at all we were sitting under the awning, and Klaus was ordering tiramasu for me and a piece of cake for him. I arched a brow at his assumption. "I may have wanted something else."

"True," he admitted, totally unperturbed. "Allow me the pleasure of presuming this once."

Ha. "You've presumed a lot more than once."

"And yet here we are, having a lovely time on a sun dappled patio, surrounded by fragrant roses."

"Just because you got it right today doesn't mean you always will." I pointed from my chest to his. "Equal partners, _comprende_?"

"_Sí, mi amor_."

Figured. I could see he was laughing at me, but this one time I wasn't going to take offense. "Don't think we won't talk about this if it happens again,"I warn mildly.

His eyes were creased with crows feet of humor. "I look forward to it."

A few minutes later our treats arrived.

So that was a cake fork. Huh. People come up with the strangest things.

I looked and caught Klaus staring out over the distance, his eyes seeing but not seeing.

"You know what's weird," I said suddenly.

His gaze slid over to me, brow quirked with speaking amusement. Okay, yes, starting a sentence like that probably would throw some grammar Nazis into a hissy fit, but I like to keep people on their toes with incomplete rhetorical 'questions'.

I leaned forward to rest my forearms on the bistro table, studying him intently. "Sometimes I get the impression that when you're looking at something, you're seeing..." _How to describe it?_ "...multiple levels at the same time. Like, what it is now, then what it was twenty years ago, then what it was-"

I glanced over my shoulder. Nobody was around us, but I still finished in a whisper, "A hundred years ago."

Klaus smiled just a little. "You're not wrong. It's difficult to separate so many years of memory." He shrugged. "Do you never remark, 'remember when that was a field and not a Dairy Queen?'?"

I laughed. "I don't know if that's the same thing."

"The two are not unrelated. It began like that for me. A building appearing here, a few trees disappearing there. Change is gradual but unrelenting. Before you know it a town's grown, been taken by the plague, and then somehow managed to turn itself into a resort for the rich and famous."

I tilted my head. "Is that any town in particular?"

His smile grew. "None you've ever heard of, my love, but your time will come." He turned his attention back to the path, where people walked by doing their own thing. "As a vampire you'll be more aware of time marching along, wreaking its affect on everything save you."

"Doesn't that depress you?" I thought back to my eighteenth birthday and then to our one strange 'date'. "I know you said you thought about being human. And I think the thought of dying has occurred to you _at least_ once. Doesn't it ever become too much?"

He didn't look at me, but I could tell he was seriously pondering the question. That was the thing about Klaus; for every time he had a flip answer for me, there was an equal number of times he really listened to what I had to say.

Not that he did that exactly what I wanted him to. Sometimes he chose the dumbest moments to get all psychoanalytical on me. In general, though? Klaus paid attention.

It was one of the nice things about him. I'd have to write that down. _List of Things Klaus is Good At When He's Not Trying to Kill People and Take Over the World._ Yeah. I'd pin it to the cork board in my room and look at it when I needed reminding.

"A key component of change, Caroline, is the concept of 'new'. Every day there is a tweaking in the fabric of what we know, and it becomes novel again. There is _always_ something to interest us. Something to look forward to, even if it's just to distract us until something truly captivating comes along."

I blinked. I wanted to ask what constituted 'truly captivating' but I had a feeling I already knew what that was. Klaus wasn't exactly subtle. "Have you ever been here before?"

"No. We are, for all intents and purposes, seeing it for the first time together." He angled his head. "Rather romantic for a first date, don't you think?"

My brows arched. "Technically it's our third date."

"Would that it were true," he replied. "However I find that I don't care to think of those as dates." He licked his lips. "More like a practice for the real thing."

The real thing. No take backs. No get-out-of-jail-free card. Nothing I didn't already know. So I smiled and started to eat my tiramisu. It's fantastic, of course, which is just another small mark against his smug Original self. I shook my head. Sometimes I really hated how often Klaus was right.

Cake at home, donuts that morning, tiramasu at lunch. "Feeding me sweet stuff all the time is going to backfire," I told him between bites.

"Is that a hint that I should take you out for a wholesome meal?"

Well, I walked right into that one. "Maybe. Nothing too fancy. No place we have to dress up. We can save the formal occasions for further down the road."

There I went, talking about a future together. It even sounded a little natural. I was getting used to the idea, apparently. I was happy about that—second guessing everything at this point would have been useless.

"I will endeavor to apply my considerable resources to the task."

"Psychic witch powers?"

He shrugged one shoulder. "Or Google Maps."

For some reason that made me laugh, breaking a little of the tension I didn't know was still riding me. When that dispelled the small hope that had appeared after our kiss grew. Every moment I spent in his company when he was pleasant like this reminded me of the possibilities, the positive ones, the ones where we could be content and comfortable together.

I wanted those. If not for my sake, than for ours, because eternity is a long, long time.

xxxxx

Caroline was significantly more at ease following our little interlude at the tea shop. Her face was more open, her laughter freer, and I found myself devouring every expression she let me see.

It was all so very innocent and chaste. I had deliberately engineered the circumstances to be so.

I sent my hybrids away so as to remove the pressure of an audience, though Caroline had no way of knowing they watched over us even now. I refused to let my guard down completely. Her safety was paramount, but fortunately there were ways around the obvious.

I chose an idyllic spot, square in the public eye, yet romantic enough to seduce Caroline's senses. I plied her with delicious food and good conversation. I seized upon the chance for another date the moment it presented itself, and she didn't balk.

Normal. Unremarkable. Enjoyable.

Sweet torture.

Every time she laughed, I wanted to bury my hands in her hair and hold her to me. Her smile reminded me of our kiss, every fleeting sensation magnified. I was very much a wolf in sheep's clothing, encouraging a feeling of security in my presence while planning her downfall all the while.

I was in no hurry, of course. Let Caroline feel comfortable with me. I wanted her to rely upon my strength and my presence more than ever before. She did, once, in rare moments when she forgot to raise her guard against me. What time severed, I would rebuild, and this time it would be too strong of a bond to break.

White hot longing threatened to overtake me at one point, when she made joke with a stray bit of cream on her lip. I hid it behind a practiced smile.

She knew I wanted her. I have never made that any secret. Yet I recognized the concessions that had already been made that day, and I resolved to push no further for the time being.

Tomorrow, however, would be different.

And the day after that.

And the day after that, until I chipped away at the armor she no doubt still harbored beneath her acceptance. I know Caroline. She would do what she believed to be the right thing and set aside her own inhibitions for the cause. That is not true surrender, and nothing less than such would satisfy me.

Caroline is no empty-headed beauty queen. I had no doubt she sensed my regard on more than one occasion yet, for reasons of her own, chose to ignore it. There was a moment of silence that went on too long, made awkward by my staring.

I decided to turn her attention. "Have you given any thought to university, Caroline?"

She blinked at me. We were finished with our treats, sitting and enjoying the sunshine for a few moments more. "College? Some."

"Any particular one that holds your interest?"

"I haven't really looked," she admitted, setting her spoon down. "I was doing a lot of traveling and then I got caught up in other stuff."

I nod. "Perhaps now that we have set our...differences aside, you might want to look into it." I cocked my head. "Unless you've decided to wait a few years."

A light sparked in her eye, an excitement she couldn't quite quell. The idea pleased her, which pleased me. Caroline was meant for greater things. She was smart; it would not do to let that intelligence go to waste.

Of course, a degree was not proof of her agile mind. It was, however, an important rite of passage in the lives of her contemporaries. I would encourage her to take it, not only in genuine desire to see her flourish, but as one more strategic brick in the foundation of my plan. Whatever she told herself, this courtship was going to lead to something permanent. I wanted her to experience all the pleasures in life at my side. This was merely the first step.

Her leg began to jiggle with anticipation beneath the table, belying her composed expression. "You know, I didn't think of that."

I signaled the server for the check. "Do. You'll be great. If you'd like, we can look at a few choices together once you've done your research."

"Really?" Some of her enthusiasm suddenly dimmed. "I don't think I have enough money."

I smiled at the woman when she handed me the small black folder, pulling out my wallet. "There are scholarships. Government grants. One merely has to know where to look." I added a generous tip to the total and hand the folder back. The woman bid us have a very good day, clearly thrilled at her good fortune.

I stood and pulled out Caroline's chair, leaning over to speak in her ear. "And if there is a discrepancy in the totals, I'm certain one of my foundations would be happy to sponsor a bright young woman such as yourself."

She stayed where she was and gaped up at me. What a delicious picture. "You have foundations?"

"A few philanthropic endeavors I started ages ago, mostly to support the arts." I held out my hand, which she accepted with a sort of dazed expression. "Have you given any thought to art as a major? You do have an eye for it."

The conversation was off at a gallop from there. It continued well after I rang for a pick up, though our two bodyguards were already on their way by then. Wouldn't do to let Caroline see how closely we were observed. We climbed in and the talk raced on, Caroline's natural light quickly taking over. She had a thousand ideas to consider, and it seemed now that a real possibility had presented itself she wanted to get started right away.

She did not even realize she had invited me into her apartment until it was too late. I saw the moment of hesitation, that pause as she stood in the doorway of her room, her hand on the handle. She looked over her shoulder at me, eyes strict. "Don't take this the wrong way, okay? I'm just showing you my mixed media."

I smiled benignly. "Wouldn't dream of it, love."

Dream? No. Fantasize in explicit detail? Oh yes.

Make reality soon?

_There are no words for such surety. _

Caroline did not appear to entirely believe me, but she stepped aside all the same.

Her room was a feminine, delightful mix of dark woods and accessories. She had a sturdy sleigh bed—no creaking with extreme movement—and matching night stand and chest of drawers. Simple, yet emphasized with the plethora of knick knacks and mementos artfully displayed. There were shadow boxes, a pin board, lanterns and photos. Each one told a very organized story of Caroline's travels.

I crossed the threshold.

She stood in the center of the room, slightly uncomfortable. "Why don't you sit in the chair and I'll get the scrapbooks." She rushed into the closet.

I looked at the chair, which sat before a large, worn desk strewn with paraphernalia. It was squeezed into a corner with barely any room to spare. I honestly did not know how she managed to maneuver it through the door. Vampire strength was one thing. Simple physics and geometry another.

I heard her rummage and considered the solitary seat available to me. If I sat, there would be nowhere for Caroline to go except the bed.

How tempting.

Ah, but no more pushing for the day, I reminded myself with a smirk. One must have a sense of timing in these things.

When she emerged from the closet with books in hand, she found me perched against the desk's surface, holding the chair for her. "Ladies first."

She glanced from me to it, but said nothing. She sat.

It was gratifying on a level she could not begin to guess. "Show me," I prompt.

She nodded and opened the first scrapbook. It was a simple notebook, well worn and stuffed to the brim with whatever Caroline had discovered on her journey. I knew without asking that this was where it all began.

It was fascinating what Caroline had built for herself. I had heard some of the stories before, but it was quiet another situation to have visual accompaniment. She would not allow me to read the journal entries, preferring instead to reference how her style had evolved, but she could not stop me from glimpsing. I saw evidence of loneliness and fear. Even her photos from the period were devoid of Caroline herself.

Gradually the entries grew more encompassing, and Caroline apparently fell in with a group of travelers. She began to appear in photos, not always facing the camera. I watched in fascination as her expressions became more open with the passing of time.

When the second book opened, I began to study her more than her work. She was talented, that much was certain, and I had no doubt she would be accepted into any program she wished. I felt a curious sense of pride on her behalf. The teenage girl I had met had blossomed into a young woman.

I found the transformation intriguing. More than that, I found it heady.

Caroline was strong. Stronger than she knew.

More desirable than she could ever imagine.

My hand raised of its own accord, cupping the back of her neck. She stuttered to a stop, looking up at me with wide, beautiful eyes.

I did not announce my intention—I merely followed through, leaning down and covering her mouth with mine.

I did not miss the ironic reversal in our positions, but this time it was not declaration.

It was affirmation.

I stroked her mouth with mine at a slow, even, languorous pace. The citrus scent of her mixed with the electric heat that rose between us was drugging. I rejoiced in my right to have this, have her. When she pressed back with a breathy sigh, I advanced, turning this way and that, exploring every corner I could reach.

She rose from the chair and leaned in, eyes closed, grabbing my shirt for balance.

I broke the kiss with a gasp, dangerously close to taking this too far, too soon.

She made a startled sound, befuddled by the loss of me. "Whaa...?"

I chuckled, both at myself and the situation. "You are much too tempting for me, my love," I told her, pressing our foreheads together. "Wouldn't want to jump the gun, now would we?"

Reality was creeping in. I could see it in her widening eyes, her little intake of breath. Caroline Forbes had allowed Klaus Mikelson to kiss her. Even better, she had kissed him back.

Victory.

I kissed her again. And again. Quick, possessive kisses that made her more adorably confused than before. "I'm leaving," I told her between kisses. "Lock the door behind me."

"You...I..."

"Shh." Another kiss. "If you talk I might decide that staying is the better option."

She grabbed me during the last kiss, throwing her arms around my neck and turning on me with the passion of a courtesan, taking my lips expertly and leaving me reeling when she suddenly released me. Suddenly it was I blinking at her.

She smirked, breathing hard. "Go then," she said. "If you're so anxious."

I laughed. "Oh Caroline. If you only knew."

I left then, promising myself that retribution for her sexy parley would be sweet.

And holding Caroline's original scrapbook.

One must use the resources one has at hand, after all.

**To Be Continued**

* * *

Author's Note:

To Sara, Happy Early Birthday! May this year be more amazing than the last.

To my readers: I am grateful for each of you. Some have messaged me about updates. I intend to update once a month until completion; however there are times inspiration might be with me, so an additional update might be possible. Plan on once a month for certain.

Also, I'm looking for an avatar for this story. If one of my lovely readers would be kind enough to point me in the direction of one, I would appreciate it. Of course, if you'd like to make one (proper credit given) I won't stop you!

Reviews inspire me!


	9. Chapter 9

When I arrived in my new city, I did so with more intention than firm planning. With no idea how long I would be staying, a hotel simply would not do. The apartment I installed myself was better suited to my purposes. It was no showpiece, but it did have a very interesting perk.

A large, extravagant bed.

I lounged in aforementioned bed, stripped down to the bare essentials of clothing, my back to the headboard and a glass of wine resting on the nightstand. No hard spirits tonight. The sort of nighttime reading I planned to indulge in was meant to be savored. My choice of alcohol should be no different.

The lamp cast more than sufficient light on the scrapbook propped on one upraised knee. I leaned on the pillow wedged under my arm, inspecting each and every entry with avid zeal. I did not rush. These pages were a crystal clear window into Caroline's mind, something she created in her most unguarded moments. This was my lady, naked and stripped of all her defenses.

As I read the first few pages, I found myself remembering those days with painful clarity. I stood on the train platform and watched her sail by, her face pale and startled in the window. Never once did I believe she was permanently lost to me. No, to me, Caroline had only temporarily misplaced herself, a vexing notion that required immediate correction.

The bitter amusement at her antics tempered my anger somewhat. I had come to expect the unexpected from Caroline Forbes. Part of what initially drew me was her inexplicable reactions to situations. Where I expected hysterics, she displayed composure. When I anticipated anger, she blasted me with cold regard. It was...startling. In those dim moments of what was to be the end of her life that fateful birthday, she did not beg. She glared.

Once upon a time women were chattel, yes, but the harshness of life required a fortitude that has become more and more of a specter in these modern times. Death is delayed, even a surprise. So unlike the time in which I was born, where death was a daily companion.

Caroline's strength intrigued me. Time did the rest.

When I discovered her plan and rushed to stop her, I was not surprised by her escape. I was merely taken aback by her ability to slip by my measures.

Clever Caroline.

But one day bled into the next, and then the next, then a week. Amusement turned to ash in the face of my growing concern, which morphed into rage. Where was she? How could she have disappeared off the face of the Earth in this age of computers and electronic tracking? Caroline was only eighteen—she had never had to fend for herself without a support system. Tortuous images began to dog me. Amazing how many terrible events one can imagine in the dead of the night.

While Caroline was alone and afraid, so was I.

When she began to find her equilibrium, I was teetering on the edge.

When she found the first bloom of confidence, I feel into the abyss.

Her writing became more fluid and balanced, well considered and expressed. Frankly I wasn't entirely certain what I was doing by then. Or perhaps I was and merely didn't care to think on it.

It really didn't matter. What mattered was the here and now. Still, I had a valuable tool at my fingertips. One cannot ignore the power of a first hand account. The unwashed, unvarnished truth told in Caroline's own words.

When my mobile vibrated some hours into my reading, I took a quick sip of my wine before answering. The number looked vaguely familiar, which meanst nothing. A myriad of people were able to contact me via this phone. I accepted the call, "Yes?"

"Do you have any idea what a douche move you pulled?"

I smiled. "Caroline. I wasn't aware you had my number."

"The only reason it took me this long to call is because I had to find out the freakin' thing first, and don't think I don't know you did that on purpose."

"Now there you have me, love."

"_You took my scrapbook_, Klaus. That's like stealing my diary!" She strangled out a growl. I could just imagine her, pacing on the other side of the call, hand clenched as if wrapping it around my throat.

"I must compliment you on your handwriting, by the way. Very legible and confident."

"You aren't even going to deny it?"

"Why should I? We both know the truth."

"Not only is it creepy, but it's invasive and infuriating! What the hell were you thinking?"

I idly flipped another page. "I saw an opportunity and I seized it, love. You can hardly blame me for wanting to know more about the time we spent apart."

She huffed. "Did you ever think of just asking?"

I cocked a brow. "Would you have told me?"

"Well, it's too little too late now, isn't it? God, I can't believe I'm even surprised by this. Of course you don't know what boundaries are. It's perfectly normal for you to take me out on a great date then steal something super personal from my room when I'm not looking." Her voice changed. "Don't even think about showing up at my apartment for the next week, you jerk. Not without a damn good apology. I'm talking epic."

I sat up, alert. "What do you mean?"

"Figure it out, Klaus! You want to date, fine—here's the first lesson in what a relationship is like: _Don't invade your girlfriend's privacy!_" She shouted the last bit into the phone, causing me to jerk the receiver away to save my sensitive hearing.

There is a tone, and I was left staring at the blinking 'call ended' symbol.

Caroline hung up on me in a pique.

For a moment I was uncertain how to react. Naturally I was not pleased at being shouted at. Nor did I appreciate the abrupt end to our conversation. And yet...

My lips quirked. Curled. Spread into a grin. Chuckles shook my frame and grew into laughter. Ah, Caroline! I tossed the mobile away and slumped against the headboard, running my hands down my face. She would be a handful, that one. _"Isn't she stunning?"_ I once asked Kol.

I did suppose she has a point. I wasn't particularly fond of anyone touching my things, myself. The scrapbook was a temporary source of information at best, soon to be exhausted. Caroline's anger, however, wanted assuaging.

A week, was it? I would give her three days. It was sufficient time to put my other plans into motion. A permanent residence, for example, one large enough for two vampires and the occasional hybrid or family member that might make an appearance. Caroline wouldn't have to know that I bought it with her in mind. She did value her independence, after all. It would simply be another piece maneuvered into place for the inevitable conclusion, there whenever I happened to need it.

Contacting the necessary foundations concerning funds for education was also a priority. I had made the offer; follow through was of the utmost importance. Taking the scrapbook had shaken Caroline's newborn trust in me. Regrettable but not something from which I could not recover. I would make good on my word. She would forgive my little lapse in the wake of it.

I laid the scrapbook aside, running a finger over the cover. I had developed a sort of affection for the thing. A bit of gratitude for allowing me to see what I otherwise could not have.

I scoffed at my own sentimentality and eased onto my back, one arm draped over my forehead as I contemplated the ceiling.

Girlfriend.

Such a paltry word.

Caroline was a queen in the making, destined to rule over the Shades. She would conquer them with a smile. They would fall for her charm, never suspecting how fierce she could be under the brightness.

Now where would a queen like that feel most at home?

xxxxx

I was going to kill him. I don't know why it never occurred to me to do it before. Clearly the Salvatores were super crappy at it. In my current state of mind, all I needed was a ten second window and a sharp stick.

I paced my room like a caged animal, dearly wishing he was there. How the hell could someone kiss a person like that and then steal their freakin' scrapbook? I had thoughts and feelings in there I would never say out loud. _That's why I wrote them down_. People don't go around reading stuff like that, dammit.

Oh god, some of the things I wrote. He was reading them, possibly even at that moment, and he'd know more about me during that period than my mom did.

It just wasn't right. It was—it was-

So freakin' Klaus I couldn't even really be mad. Embarrassed as hell, yes, but mad? On a scale of one to ten of terrible things he'd done, this barely rated a point five. Not that it made me feel better to know that.

Oh, he was so dead.

I had to get the number to call him from my mom. I didn't even have his number. How messed up was that? I was practically Frenching a guy I couldn't even call! I ran my hands through my hair. I was so flipping upset and confused that I didn't really know where to start anymore. Kissing Klaus was so much easier than I thought it would be. Multiple times. That should have been a good sign, right? And he left without pushing the issue.

Except he left with something of mine that he shouldn't have. Was that why he was so nice about it? He wanted to get out of there so he could dig up dirt? Did he think I wouldn't notice it was missing, and he oh-so-conveniently happened to be in the vicinity a few minutes prior?

I sank into my chair and propped my face in my hands. "Not even a day and things are already more complicated than they ought to be."

Okay, step two: Establishing boundaries. Klaus did not get to paw through my stuff whenever he felt like it. Hence the one week ban. First of all, I didn't want to see his face for a good long while. Second of all, he had to learn there were consequences to being creeptastic like that. This wasn't kindergarten, for god's sake. I shouldn't have to train his good judgment like a puppy on a pad. He was over a thousand years old. I was only 20. I didn't have time for this!

Wait. Actually, I did.

Rephrase: I didn't have the patience for it.

There was no way I was going to be able to go to sleep that night. I had a choice between trying to get a jump on projects that were coming up...or grabbing the ice cream in the freezer and popping in a dvd from the first season of _Supernatural._

That was no contest.

Decision made, I jumped out of my chair and threw my door open. "Colby! It's Winchester Watch time!"

My roommate popped out of the woodwork faster than you could say _vampire._ "Supernatural?" he asked excitedly.

"Season One."

"You are speaking my language, Terra."

I think Colby would have preferred a male roommate, but when I came along he was so desperate for the other half of the rent he probably didn't want to quibble about gender. At first I thought he was just gay—not exactly a leap, considering he'd just broken up with his boyfriend. Turned out he was bi. It didn't cause a problem, though. I was so far from his type it was almost funny. Colby tended to favor one of two groups: tall hipster men or short girls with tattoos, dyed hair, and piercings.

Preferably Asian in both cases.

And he was as adorably ginger as could be. Such a cutie. He also let me decorate the way I wanted. He won points all the way around not too many weeks after I moved in.

It occurred to me as I put in the disc that I was going to have to clue Klaus in to the gender of my roommate. Now that was a pain. I didn't think it was much of his business, at least not at that moment, but reality was that I didn't want Colby turned into shishkabob over some misunderstanding. He deserved better than that, and I wouldn't want to be kept in the dark if it were me.

Being fair sucked sometimes, but that was relationships. As twisted as the one I was in turned out to be.

Colby had the bowls and ice cream and was already in prime watching mode. He still managed to spare a glance at me, though. "What's got your panties out of place?"

"Funny," I snorted. "Being sexless to me doesn't mean you can comment on my undies."

"I'll remind you of that the next time you mix the whites with the colors. Your thong will just have to end up splotchy blue."

"Come on, it was a normal pair of panties and that was one time." I grabbed the proffered bowl and sat down on the loveseat. "I met up with a guy I knew in my hometown yesterday."

He sucked on his spoon. "And?"

"It was weird, and it reminded me of a lot of things I thought I left behind. Same old song and dance."

"You're talking to the guy who got disowned for liking dudes. Vague answers sort of don't cut it with me."

If only he knew. Still, a lot of things were going to come out over the next few days. I might as well prepare him in advance. So while the main dvd menu flickered on the screen of our television, I dug into the ice cream and spilled my guts. "His name is Klaus. He's from the oldest family in town. I mean, the kind of family everybody knew about."

"Kind of like on Andy Griffith."

I rolled my eyes. "Anyway, Klaus has a reputation. He did a lot of things over the years that didn't make people like him very much, but he was still charming and charismatic. He didn't get along with my group." That was the understatement of the year, yet strangely appropriate. "Especially not my boyfriend."

Colby eyed me. "I am sensing a secret romance here."

"There wasn't a romance," I protested.

"Deep, dark, dirty animal attraction?"

"Seriously, what were you doing this weekend?"

He grinned. "Do you really want to know?"

"No." Colby was a horndog who had no problem whatsoever regaling me with his sex life. I'll say this much for him—he was definitely imaginative with his positions. "Do you want to hear this or not?"

"Please. I already know where this is going. Chris-"

"Klaus."

"That's what I said—Klaus had the hots for tender little Terra, which may or may not have been consummated, and she disappeared into the wild blue yonder after high school. Years later they meet and it's lust at second sight. Am I close?"

"Kind of. It was a lot more than lust for him." I shifted in my seat. "He was really in love with me. Like, you know, would do anything for me, love."

"Wow. Really?"

I nodded. "Yeah. And you know what the worst part was? I liked it. I liked knowing this big, bad guy had this soft spot for me, even though I was totally in love with my boyfriend. I know it kind of makes me a bad person, but it also humanized him at the same time."

Colby seemed to get it. "There was a girl like that in my high school. Total raging bitch, but when she was around her boyfriend she purred like a kitten and giggled like a broken kewpie doll. Weirded me out."

The image in my head of Klaus giggling was totally bizarre, and it made me laugh. "Well, he's never giggled, but he does soften up."

"Does or did?"

Damn English majors. "Does. But man, he's got issues. On the one hand he's totally sweet to me, and then he's a complete bastard to other people. It's like this knee-jerk reaction and it's enough to give you whiplash."

Colby stilled. "What do you mean, issues? Like, anger management issues?"

His last boyfriend was abusive. He got out before it turned too bad, but there were a few weeks when he had nightmares and there were some nasty phone calls in the middle of the night. The terrible part was that what he was thinking about Klaus wasn't wrong, but it wasn't right either. "He's a lot like a kid when he doesn't get his way." Total truth. "His dad was a total psycho who went over the edge when Klaus' youngest brother died. It's just really irritating."

He was quiet for a while. "So what's this blast from the past got to do with you now?"

"Nothing and everything. He wants to date. I said yes."

He set the bowl on the coffee table. "Terra, I am going to give you the speech."

"The speech about not hanging out with anyone who doesn't treat me right and who becomes more controlling over time, because it's not worth it and I can do better?"

"Exactly. That speech."

"You're right," I said simply. "I can. I'm not going to let him treat me as anything less than a queen." I pursed my lips. "To be honest, he's never once made me feel worthless. He's always encouraged me to go out, see more, do bigger things. He thinks I should go to college."

Funny the things you say when you're defending somebody, even when you're mad at them. I didn't think I'd totally convinced Colby to give up his suspicions, but he did warm up a little at the idea of Klaus lobbying for positive improvement. "He's also kind of rich," I tossed out on a whim.

"Kind of or really?"

"I don't have figures, but let's just say it isn't a problem."I chewed on my bottom lips. "One more thing."

He sighed. "I'm all ears."

"Everybody called me Caroline in high school, so don't be surprised if he does when he comes around."

"Caroline? Well...that's wholesome."

"Hey! It's a perfectly respectable name!"

"Whatever. Start the show. I'm dying to ogle some sarcastic Dean Winchester butt."

That went better than expected.

We watched a lot more episodes than we originally intended, but by the time I finally did make it to bed I was feeling more grounded. The next three days passed uneventfully. There was radio silence from Klaus. It was exactly what I asked for, and yet I was still suspicious. It wasn't like him to be so obedient, you know?

I did all the normal things. I worked on projects. I looked up colleges. I talked to Mom. That was awesome. It was still unbelievable to me in a lot of ways, but mostly I was just grateful. Even better, by the third day, I had half-convinced myself that Klaus was actually going to do the right thing.

I went out grocery shopping. When I came back, I was loaded down with what we needed for the week. All of my reusable bags (which I sewed myself, thank you very much) were filled to the brim with essentials and would have knocked a normal human down. It was nothing against vampire strength, but at the same time it wasn't exactly comfortable getting on and off the bus with everything. I got to the front door of my building, trying to dig out my keys when this _smell_ drifted up my nose. It was light, like it was far away, and oh it was bad.

I'd smelled that before. A long time ago.

It smelled like something...dead.

My heart dropped into my stomach. I forced myself to stay calm. There were any number of reasons I could be smelling what I was smelling. Maybe someone went hunting and brought back deer meat or something to the city. Not a lot of hunters in the heart of the metropolis, but still, it was possible.

But the more I climbed the stairs, the stronger the smell became, until I was standing outside of my apartment door and utter certainty slammed between my eyes. Blood pumping, I dropped all of the bags and slammed my key home. It was still locked, thank god, but that didn't mean anything, did it? "Colby?" I called out, panicked. No answer. "Colby?"

Oh god.

Oh god.

I didn't smell blood. If something was wrong, I'd smell blood right? Not just death. Colby was fine when I left an hour ago. He had to be fine now. He just had to be. I vampire flashed to his room. "Colby!"

"What?"

I jumped, spinning around. There he was, standing in nothing but a towel, wet from a shower. "Thank god!" I threw myself into his arms, not even caring if he got me wet. "I thought something was wrong."

He peeled me off. "What the hell is going on? You okay?"

"This is going to sound totally crazy but something smells really, really bad."

"Not me. Just took care of that."

"No, I mean really, Colby! Like, it was so strong. It still is." I scented the air. Colby thought I had a developed sense of smell. He didn't have a clue, and I would have kept it that way if this horrible musk would just go away.

I turned and left the room, following my nose with a sick churning in my chest. I headed back to the grocery bags I abandoned in the hall. There, in the sea of material, was a small brown paper wrapped box I missed earlier. I stood there, staring at it, knowing Colby had come up behind me. "Did you order anything?"

"No. You?"

"No." I didn't want to open that package. I didn't want to get near it, but I bent and gently picked it up anyway. It looks like any other package, except with no name. I don't hear any ticking, but there's a slide of something inside. Like a soft thump. Chills shot up my arm, filling me with the heebie jeebies. I quickly bent and put it back on the ground, wiping my hand on my jeans in disgust.

Colby was quiet and pale, paler than usual. He met my gaze. "Do you think Dan left it?"

"I don't know." When that bastard first started terrorizing Colby, I tried to let the police handle it. Unfortunately there was only so much they could do before something bad happened. I took matters into my hands and compelled Dan to stay the hell away or suffer the consequences. Had he found a way around the compulsion?

"Should we open it?"

"Are you nuts?" Didn't he watch the news? I had super speed, but he didn't. If something was as wrong as I thought it was, there was little chance he could get out of the way in time.

"Maybe it's from neighbor."

"And maybe Lizzie Borden didn't give her parents forty whacks," I retort.

"Then what do we do with it?"

"Get rid of it," I decide. "If it is from a neighbor, we'll buy them wine as an apology."

"Then one of us has to pick it up."

"Aren't you the dude around here? Aren't you supposed to be thrusting out your chest and claiming to be brave?"

"Whoa, who's throwing gender stereotypes around here, Mary Sunshine? I'm mostly naked, or hadn't you noticed? You're a modern girl. Turn on your inner GI Jane and hop to it."

_Gender equality._ It went both ways, apparently. After a second's indecision, I ran back (at human speed) to the kitchen and dug out one of our plastic bags. I used it to scoop up the package without touching it again, letting it fall back into the sack. I held it out like the dirty thing it was and dashed down the stairs, practically sprinting for the dumpster. It was way, way out there on the other side of the complex, which was stupid but harsh reality of city life.

When I threw the thing in the container I almost danced with relief. I did a full on body shiver because I knew—_I knew_—that whatever I had just thrown away was bad news of the nth degree. I took my time walking back. I looked like an idiot running the way I had, and I had to dig up my old Miss Mystic Falls smile to pacify the natives as I walked by.

A few minutes later I was climbing the stairs again. The bags were gone and the door was open. "I'm back," I called out. I felt a million years old. I wasn't used to the hustle and bustle of danger anymore. If that was what had in fact happened. It set off my radar, that's for sure. "Hey, Colby-"

I halted.

"Caroline," Klaus greeted with a tight smile. He had his hands behind his back, and beyond him stood Colby.

Half naked Colby.

In a towel.

Putting the groceries away.

Klaus tilted his head. "Something you wish to tell me?"

_Dammit_.

**To Be Continued...**

* * *

**Author's Note:**

**1. Inspiration just happened to be with me. Along with insomnia. You know how it goes. It translated to an unexpected update. **

**2. I am still on the look out for a cover icon for this story. Any suggestions would be welcome.**

**3. Reviews are wonderful. **


	10. Chapter 10

Imagine my great surprise at finding a recently showered man in my lady's apartment. I must confess that, given I had had hybrid stationed on her doorstep for days, I had rather hoped to be better informed of her goings on.

Caroline's pale face was not reassuring. Then her expression tightened. "What are you doing here? We agreed to a week."

"And just why was that?" I asked with a tightening of my jaw. She came forward—brave of her—and skirted around me quickly. I watched with gradually widening eyes as she placed herself next to the human, obviously shielding him from my wrath.

With a hand on his very bare chest, I might add. The unconscious, familiar gesture coupled with her defiant stare did not improve my rapidly deteriorating mood.

"You know why," she said flatly.

"Yes, I'm beginning to see."

Caroline snorted. "Rein in your imagination, Klaus. This is Colby. My _roommate."_ She crowded just a bit closer to the redheaded man, ready to defend him at a moment's notice.

Thus her introduction's soothing affect was only minimal at best. "My my," I murmured, running my eyes down his...rather unspectacular frame, "aren't we progressive?"

To his credit, the human met my regard without flinching. "You were right about his being intense. One might even call it bellicose."

I cocked my head. "Would one?"

"You walked into an apartment that wasn't yours and practically accuse Terra of having a man sleep over. Considering you just showed up what, three, four days ago, you don't exactly have the right to get possessive, do you?" He put his hand over 'Terra's' and watched my reaction. "Bellicose," he repeated decisively.

This human and I were not going to get on. "A twenty-something with a vocabulary. How droll." I dismissed him with a glance at Caroline. "I believe you know your choices, love. Why don't you see to it?"

Her chin shot up. "How about not? Colby is important to me. And you promised."

He looked at her sharply. "What did he promise? Terra, why are you hanging out with this guy? He doesn't respect boundaries, what makes you think he's going to respect you?"

I could see from Caroline's flickering eyes that his words hit far to close to home. "Mind your business, my man," I growled. "The door was open. I came in to make certain she wasn't hurt."

"Oh? And the He-man display?"

"I asked her to explain—hardly a show of violence." Though that could be negotiated. I promised not to kill. Throw around like a pinata, however, was still on the table.

"Terra, look, I know it's not my right to interfere-"

I cut in, bristling, "It's not."

"But you and I both know the signs."

"The signs of what, you meddlesome-"

"BOYS!" Caroline snapped. "Bring it down a notch!"

She pointed at me. "I told you one week. You don't get to show up here and throw your weight around, with or without that epic apology I mentioned. Of which you are without." She turned to the roommate, her tone noticeably softer. "Colby, I know what you're thinking, and what I'm about to say isn't going to help, but it isn't what it looks like. Klaus has a problem with boundaries, but he has no intention of hurting me."

"Just bully you," he insisted. "Terra, this is how it starts."

My head came up.

She shot a glance my way. She opened her mouth, then closed it. There was no defense against the accusation.

A peculiar pain centered itself over my heart, stabbing deep.

There was a flicker of something in her expression. Weariness, perhaps. Certainly sadness. "I don't want to do this," she said with a swallow.

For a moment—an endless, impossible moment—I thought she was referring to our relationship.

_No_.

A growl began in my chest when she slipped her hands over his jaw, bringing his gaze to hers. "Colby."

The growl cut itself off, and I watched warily.

"The last few minutes didn't happen. Klaus knocked before he came in. He was helping you put up groceries. You decided you like him for now, but you're going to reserve judgment the way you would with any of my boyfriends." She cut off the link by blinking, then leveled a look at me that revealed in no uncertain terms her feelings on the matter. She cleared her throat. "So, Colby's a big fan of literature. Who knows, you might find something in common."

He blinked in confusion. "Yeah, maybe."

My voice was hoarse and quiet. "It is not unlikely," I allowed.

"Man, is it chilly in here or what? I'm going to run and get some clothes on. Be right back." He left the kitchen, still rather dazed, but that would wear off soon enough.

The atmosphere between Caroline and myself, however, was another matter.

She refused to look at me, hugging herself as she gazed at the floor. "You should go."

Regret quickly followed the relief I had briefly experienced. Faced with the possibility of her refusal, age old instincts had surged forth, only to be quashed as quickly as they had kindled. "Caroline-"

"Don't pretend you're sorry. We both know you're not."

"I am." In three steps I was before her. I refused to allow distance of any kind separate her from me again. She backed away when I would have cupped her waist, but trapped herself against the counter instead. I saw my chance and I took it, keeping her there despite her avoidance of my touch. "I'm aware that you've made a sacrifice for me."

She laughed humorlessly. "Yeah, because you couldn't tamp it down, could you?" She sniffed. Her beautiful eyes were wet and resentful. "I had a speech all planned out. It didn't have to be like this. I didn't have to mess with his mind. He took me in and gave me a home and he's my friend, Klaus, but he thought he was protecting me and now this."

"I came here today to make peace." It was important that she knew that.

"You've got a really good way of showing it."

She was not in the state of mind to listen. My window had closed and the curtains were drawn. I cursed my own sense of timing. I thought I had planned this so carefully, yet she still managed to turn everything upside down. I could not deny it was my own temper that had engineered the downfall, however. Too quick to react. I always was in Caroline's case. "You ruin my self control," I confessed to her in a guttural voice.

I cupped her face despite her protest and forced her to look at me. Her visage was as well known to me as my own, yet it had the power to bring me to my knees if she wanted. "I readily acknowledge that I am a bully. I forced your hand. But I cannot regret it, Caroline. I want you. I will be good to you. I swear that."

When I kissed her, she did not respond. No matter. This girl was mine, by fair means or foul, and I would coax her to want me again.

It was a light, unobtrusive kiss, a melding of her soft lips to mine, and I memorized their shape when I closed my eyes. I had already exposed the raw wound of my jealousy. I was determined to impart my ability to be kind and gentle as well.

She did not push me away. The heat and sparks between us was real, despite her cold reception of my attentions. It was only her stubborn nature that kept her from embracing me in return. I was convinced of that. Two years ago she had softened towards me, but she never allowed herself to feel. When she kissed me in her kitchen, she proved her willingness to be with me. When I kissed her in her bedroom, I accepted all that she was.

Here, now, I was communicating my resolve.

Perhaps even my love.

I did love Caroline Forbes, so much that it was a sickness in my heart that threatened to overtake it at the merest mention of separation. It was obsession, possession, capable of pushing me towards depths I had never explored. It wasn't the pure, light, euphoric thing that was the modern ideal. It was a powerful, drugging pull that would not release me no matter how I struggled against it.

I knew I would do what it took to pull her into the darkness with me, but I wanted to keep Caroline's light protected, surrounded in an impenetrable bubble. It was what made her Caroline.

I withdrew from her lips with a breath. "You could love me," I told her, "if you would only let yourself."

There was a sound around the corner, and then the ginger roommate returned. Fully clothed. "Whoa, am I interrupting something?"

I let Caroline turn her face away to hide her confusion, using her momentum to tuck her head against my shoulder. We were the picture of a cuddly couple. I held her there with a hand on her hip and an arm around her back. "Colby,"I greeted. "Would you care to join us at the aquarium this evening? There's room enough in the car for one more."

I felt her minutest reaction, but she didn't balk.

He glanced from me to Caroline, uncertainty written across his expression. "The aquarium? Uh, no, thanks. I've got a paper due the day after tomorrow and I haven't even started."

"Too bad. Another time. We'll be heading out to dinner after. If you change your mind, just call and I'll send the car back."

His brows twitched at the mention of the car, but he manfully held back his surprise. "Sure, I'll keep that in mind. Thanks again for the invite."

I backed away, taking Caroline's hand in mine. "No trouble, mate. Caroline speaks highly of you."

She managed a smile—her Miss Mystic Falls smile, to be exact—that gave no hint to anything other than happiness, bidding her roommate a cheery goodbye as we left.

She pulled the door closed behind her, pausing for the barest of seconds, then followed my lead wordlessly down the stairs and into the waiting car.

Not a word passed between us during the ride, despite our firmly intertwined fingers. It was very unlike the mood of our last date. I readily accepted my fault in that. The silence, however, continued far beyond paying for admission and strolling through the halls. She was not reticent to speak to me—she answered remarks and smiled at the antics of the fish—but it was clear to me that Caroline was not mentally present. She was far, far elsewhere. The blue loneliness of the tanks only heightened the feeling, until finally I could not stand anymore.

"Come on," I barked. I pulled her out of the aquarium halfway through the displays, briskly tugging her along.

"Where are we going?" She sounded utterly surprised, more lively than she'd been in over an hour.

"Away," I replied, in no mood to explain further. A quick ring and our ride was waiting. I deposited Caroline in her customary seat and slid in after her. "Take us to the museum."

Robby nodded and pulled out without another word.

I felt Caroline's curious gaze. "What museum?"

I did not trust myself to answer just then, and cast her a look clearly communicating so. She settled back in the seat, clearly uneasy.

It took mere minutes. We exited the car without much ado, and I barely glanced at Caroline when we walked into to the marble white interior of a nondescript building. Very little indicated the purpose of the place, with the one exception of a banner hanging on the back wall. It advertised some of the newer pieces in a Baroque exhibit.

Caroline stood in the lobby, clearly unsure what we were doing there. To the left were stairs that led to a cafe. A wall of windows behind us gave the place a certain glow, and just beyond the hep and admissions desk was a hallway that went right and left.

Visitors had a choice.

Everyone had a choice, I corrected myself, giving into a rare moment of philosophy. I quickly paid the entry fee and guided Caroline forward with a hand on the small of her back. I immediately went left.

"What's all this?" Her voice naturally lowered in the starkness of the atmosphere. We approached the double glass doors at a brisk speed.

I placed my hand on the handle. "Ancient history."

I opened the door.

The hush that fell over us was immediate, the same as one might feel upon entering a cathedral. Artifacts have that affect on people; they are proof that time marches on, and when confronted with such evidence, people are thus reminded of their mortality.

I, of course, viewed it through a somewhat different lens.

The museum originally began as one building back in the 1880s, according to my research. When the collection grew beyond the physical confines of the grounds, the board purchased the building next door. Then another, then another, connecting each with a series of glass hallways and manicured courtyards. What was billed as one museum was therefore actually a series of structures. I had visited before, in a maudlin moment, because the museum had a reputation for being quite diverse in nature. Simply put, it had an all encompassing collection. One part of the museum was dedicated to American history. The other...

Well, two guesses about that.

The first room was a sort of appetizer of things to come. Dimly lit to preserve the sparse number of items within, the walls were covered with reproductions of church mosaics and tapestry scenes. Before us stood a door, no longer connected to any wall but yet managing to seem as if it could open to another dimension. Caroline approached it with caution, staring at the repetitive reliefs hammered into the iron leafing. It was a work of functional art, and it was only the beginning.

Next to it, under a thick case of glass, hung a medieval clock suspended from a hook. Imagine a grandfather clock whose wood has faded away, leaving a steel system of pulleys and hands. I could hear the phantom ticking as clear as day. It was all too easy to close my eyes and hear the sounds, smell the smells of the Middle Ages. A time of fear and wonderment, short life and the beginnings of a scientific understanding that trembled in its infancy.

To our right stood an arched portal, bits of stone columns attached the walls, the missing pieces drawn to complete them. We could see the vague shadows of people moving beyond, their hushed whispers and yellowish lighting adding an almost unearthly feel to the place.

"Why are we here, Klaus?"

I lifted my chin. "I took something from you detailing your past. Unfortunately all of my relics are scattered in other places, so this will have to do as a replacement. Ask me anything about my past and I'll tell you."

She looked from the door to me, then the portal. "So we're doing a Q&A session, is that it?"

I did not detect a softening in her. She had not, however, rejected the proposal out of hand. "Nearly everything you will see beyond that archway is a piece of what I've experienced. One thousand years of my past will lay at your feet. All you have to do is find the courage to look."

She didn't appear to want to take the bait, casting a doubtful glance about without really seeing her surroundings. Then she bit her lip and pierced me with her eyes. "Anything."

"Anything," I affirmed.

She took a deep breath, releasing almost a sigh. Her gaze focused on the portal as if she were eying the door to the Underworld. I could very nearly see her gather the moxie I so admired and wrap it around herself. Her shoulders straightened. Her chin lifted.

She walked forward, through the gate, the way Persephone might have done so thousands of years before.

I smiled at her back. Queen of the Shades indeed.

xxxxx

I've been in a couple of museums. I've even been in the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History once.

There was no comparison to what I saw here.

First of all, it was quiet. Graveyard quiet, a kind of stillness that gives you warm shivers on the back of your neck. There was a sense of presence, like the room had a lot more people in it than it did. Did I believe in ghosts before becoming a vampire? I'm not sure.

Standing in a room like this made me feel small. A teeny, tiny piece in a fabric so big no one would ever be able to see it from end to end.

And Klaus had lived a thousand years of it. I don't think it ever really registered what that meant before that moment. I walked gingerly up to the first case, just a few feet in the room, and peered in. I don't know what I was expecting to see. It was a lot like looking into a deep, deep pool. You want to see what's at the bottom, but you're afraid of falling in.

The objects inside were innocent enough. They were small gold buttons with a kind of rough pin backing. According to the plaque they were brooches used to hold capes or shawls together. I bent my head a little more. "630 AD."

"A bit before my time," Klaus said softly as he sidled up beside me. I looked at him; he had his hands behind his back. He was wearing his usual jeans and T-shirt, with a black jacket and who knew how many necklaces around his neck. He didn't look anything less than modern. He didn't fit. Was I thinking he'd suddenly turn into an ax-wielding barbarian?

Something felt very wrong. With the room or with Klaus, I couldn't be sure.

I walked along the case to the end. Inside were pieces of papyrus from Egypt that had migrated to Europe; an early sign of how extensive the trading system was. When I cleared the case I could walk into the greater part of the room. Each side was lined with cases, with a few dotting the middle. It only took a few minutes to figure out the system. We were currently in the Bronze Age. The majority of that consisted of jewelry and pottery. Most of it was taken from graves.

I can't describe what reading that made me feel. "Grave of unknown woman, necklace, earrings, hair comb, circa 650 AD." I love jewelry. I have bangles and earrings and a drawer full of rings. Did I want to buried with it all? No. But I wasn't going to be buried, was I?

My mother was. Well, she might go for cremation, but it was generally assumed she would be buried like the rest of our family and their families before them. I stood there, staring at the beads strung on a shaped wire to restore the shape, and it hit me. Chances were good I would be alive in one hundred years. Maybe even four hundred. Would someone dig up my mother and only find her jewelry in the ground.

I started to shake. I tried to bite my lip and hug myself to keep it in, but it got worse. A deep, dark, terrible fear started to assail me. A kind of panic I jut couldn't shake. I was losing it right there in the museum.

Suddenly a hand reached out and tangled with mine, gripping it tight. "Caroline." He stepped into my vision, his face filling up everything. "Breathe."

I inhaled automatically.

"Good." He didn't smile. He sounded as stern and no nonsense as a drill instructor. "Now exhale."

I did it.

"Again."

I was already beginning to feel more grounded. He was right there, the most unlikely anchor I could have imagined, and yet he made sense. He'd lived through this. Literally. He was proof I could survive.

My gaze flickered to the attendant standing just a little bit away from us; he was eying us like a hawk, probably ready to jump into action if I had a panic attack or something. Did that happen a lot?

That was funny for some reason.

"Good girl. You're doing well."

I nodded. "Yeah. Thanks. I don't know what came over me." That was a lie and he knew it.

He lowered his voice in deference to our audience. "Time means something different to us, Caroline. Remember that. Come," he commanded, using our hands to lead me away. We advanced a few yards. "This is what I wanted you to see."

It was a shield. Well, what was left of it. The wood rotted away a long time ago. It really was amazing how the museum put things together to really show the depth and breadth of the weaponry. Without the shield, they took the cap—a pointy piece of metal that was in the center of the shield—and constructed a scale clear plastic disc to represent the missing wood.

I guess they found more than that, because they took it a step forward. There was a two-d flat plastic representation of a horse. The shield sat where a rider would have held it. There were actual pieces of a bridle in the horse's mouth. There was a spear tip and a plastic shaft strapped to the side. At the bottom, in the stirrups, were crude versions of spurs.

At the top, adorning an invisible head, was a helmet. It had a slightly crooked nose guard and holes for the ears. There were lion-like animals, eagles, and god knew what else etched into the sides.

It was huge, and the whole setup was impressive. You could almost hear a horse whinny.

"The man who wore this was rich."

"How do you know?" I asked softly.

"No one but the richest of men could have afforded all this weaponry and a horse. It would have cost him the equivalent of a mansion in the nicest of suburbs."

I cocked a brow. "You're kidding me."

"Wealth was very literal, Caroline. The phrase _worldly goods_ is no exaggeration. Everything was hard currency. If you did not have gold, silver, or jewels in your hand or land in your name, you had nothing. You only had clothes because you sewed them, and you only had a home because you cut it out of nature yourself." He was studying the display intently. "From there you either earned or stole what you could to advance."

I considered that. Talking to Klaus was calming. It gave me something to focus on. "Which method did you use?"

He looked down at me, a half smile gracing his lips. "A little bit of both, darling."

"I'm guessing high yield interest accounts weren't around at the time."

"High interest, yes. Moneylenders have been around for almost as long as the concept of money. Accounts...not quite. But unlike this man, I did not have my worldly goods buried with me. Wealth simply accumulates over time. New things become old, value rises, and the rest is history."

"Did you ever wear any of this sort of stuff?"

"Yes."

I pursed my lips. "Do you still have any of it?"

"From this era?" He seemed to have to think about it. "I'm afraid not. Unfortunately there was a time or two where we had to dash off unexpectedly, leaving most everything behind. No; I'm wrong. I think I have a sword or a dagger still." His brow furrowed. "I'll have to check," he said at last.

That was just beyond weird. He couldn't remember if he had a knife from 4 BC or whenever, when there were about a million people who would kill to have one.

Another sign of how old he was.

From there we wandered to other sections. I really, really did not like the religious collection. It smelled like dust and death. I mean, The Mummy Returns type death. The gargoyles were bad, but the tapestries were horrible. It was dark in that room, for the colors and everything, but the images were not the serene, beautiful images I was expecting. Nope. It was blood and guts and gore, depicted in vivid form. Klaus explained that God was not an abstract being in those days. He was a very big, very vengeful presence with a very hard sense of justice. If you did wrong, He punished you. The Devil was just as real. Things like crops failing were a sign of good versus evil, and just like God has His angels to be messengers, Lucifer had his witches and demons.

I was both horrified and fascinated. It was very confusing. I couldn't imagine living in a time when everything was so hardcore. "How did you survive?" I asked at one point. "If people were so quick to blame the Devil and witches, surely vampires weren't too far down on the list."

"A combination of wit, deception, and a great deal of compulsion," Klaus answered. "Although there were times when bloodshed was unavoidable."

_I'll bet_, I wanted to say. But I didn't. I had a lot of food for thought to chew over.

It got better after that. We moved on to the Middle Ages. The armory was the best. They had suits of every imaginable shape and size, including one for a child. The swords were humongous—longer than me!-and they had a life sized mannequin horse and rider all decked out in jousting outfits. Complete with lance.

I gaped.

I saw one of the first examples of a pistol, which doubled as a mace since it only had one shot. I saw toys, plates, giant ovens, everything, all the way up to the 1700s. By then my distress from Colby was lessening. In a way I still blamed Klaus for forcing me to compel my friend. If he'd done as I asked, I wouldn't have had to mess with Colby's head. But it was my decision in the end; it was just easier to erase the memories than deal with the constant hostility poor Colby would have directed at someone he thought was hurting me. It was too risky. For his own safety, the memories had to go.

I still felt like a jerk, but somehow not too bad of one.

We were on the top level, and rounded a corner where all the lights were off. For a moment I thought we'd ended up in a wrong corner, but then we must have triggered a motion sensor or something. Light flickered and glowed, revealing a U-shaped life sized display of clothes.

More than a dozen mannequins stood without heads, arms, or hands, filling out frocks and jackets with disturbing detail. It was both cool and creepy. Especially the children's outfits.

I looked at the bank straight ahead, where the 'men' stood. Pants only came down to the knees, then socks and high buckled shoes. Heavy jackets, vests, and a piece of cloth wrapped around the neck. "Did you wear that?"

"'Fraid so. That cloth there-" he indicated his neck with a sweep of his finger "-could be damnably itchy if not handled properly."

"Wild."

"I have a painting in one of my residences if you'd care to see."

I turned. "You're pulling my leg."

He chuckled. "Would I jest about my artwork? There are copies of Rebecca and Kol as well, from multiple eras. Elijah was always very stylish. He made for good caricature."

"What, you drew him with a big nose or something?"

His smile was wicked. "Among other things."

"I don't think I want to know." I went over and sat on the bench. We were kind of hidden away in this area, sort of like our secret hideout. The clothing wasn't so scary now that I had the image of Elijah clomping around in a set of high heels. I would bet he pulled it off, though.

Klaus sat next to me, turned in the other direction so we could, in a way, be face to face. "All of this must seem like a giant history lesson to you."

"I never had a history lesson quite like this in school," I pointed out with a raised brow.

He smiled a little. "Yes, well, none of it is very useful, is it, if one does not put it in context." He glanced up through his lashes at me. "You haven't posed one personal question to me, Caroline. Nothing that could be construed as much beyond polite conversation, at any rate." He searched my face. "Ask me. Anything at all. I owe you answers and in this case, I feel honor bound to settle the debt."

I angled to get a better look at him. He wanted personal? Fine. I could do that. "In your entire, very long life, have you really never been in a relationship with a woman?"

He raised his chin. "Once or twice," he admitted. "Centuries ago now. Neither one of them terribly memorable."

"Are we talking about real relationships, or some kind of secret vampire thing I don't want to know about?"

He sent me a look. "Caroline. Relationships. It was still quite early on, when I had yet to come to grips with what eternity meant. My interest—which was never fully engaged to begin with—withered away not long after commencement." We locked eyes. "I never loved them. I knew that even from the beginning."

"But I'm different." There was no point in hiding from it.

He didn't flinch. "Yes. You are."

"What _makes_ me different, Klaus? What rates this kind of...devotion?"

He was silent. It was like he was memorizing my face. Now that I had a better grip on how many faces he'd seen in his lifetime, how many things had changed, I felt the weight of his feelings more than ever. For a few minutes he didn't seem inclined to answer, but then at last he said, "I don't know. I only know that you are you, and this is what I feel."

It was the closest he had ever come to saying_ I love you_ out loud. I thought he'd dodge it totally. I was wrong. Something had changed that afternoon. I didn't know what. He was handy and kissy and other stuff before, but now it was more emotional. He was letting himself be...dare I say it? Vulnerable?

The moment was getting intense. I wanted to turn away, break the tension. I couldn't.

He leaned in. "I made a mistake today. Despite what one may think, I do learn from mistakes. I also take care never to repeat them."

"You'll make new ones." There was no accusation. It was just a statement of fact. I wasn't excluding myself from it either.

His gaze warmed. "I am given to understand that relationships are a work in progress."

I couldn't help but smile at that. "Don't be cute, Klaus. I still haven't gotten that epic apology."

His brows shot up. "What, this didn't count? I'm taking you through a journey of time and space. Name one other person who has experienced the same." He looked at me expectantly, even a little playfully, his confidence clearly restored.

"Oh?" I scoffed. "I don't recall the words_ I'm sorry_ coming out of your mouth."

The mention of his mouth reminded me of kissing. _You could love me_, he'd said.

He was right. Terrifyingly right. It wasn't a step I was anywhere near ready to take, but I had a feeling that in the end I wouldn't have much say. When Klaus and I finally got it right, everything would change. I couldn't list all the ways how, but that didn't mean I was any less certain of the outcome.

"You scare the hell out of me," I confessed suddenly.

He sobered. "I know." His thumb came up to caress my chin. "The feeling, my love, is very mutual."

He leaned in and kissed me.

And this time, I closed my eyes and kissed him back.

**To Be Continued...**

* * *

**Author's Note: **

**1. **The museum described herein is based on the Germanisches Nationalmuseum in Nuernberg, Germany. I've spent a ton of time in there, thanks to Wednesday evening/free admission from 6-9 pm. Nearly everything I've described can be found there. The armory is my favorite. Just freakin' love it. Just out their website, where they have a few pictures for reference.

**2. **I don't really sleep all too well lately. I have to occupy my brain somehow. Again, once a month updates for sure, everything else is just bonus.

**3. **I tend to zone out to music as I write. For a list of songs I have on my "soundtrack" just click on this link: de dot scribd dot com/doc/162381124/Soundtrack


	11. Chapter 11

I didn't tell Klaus about the package. To be honest, I didn't think about it again for several hours, and by then he'd already left.

We went to dinner at a local restaurant. It was your run of the mill steakhouse. I liked how he didn't assume I would want a salad. Nothing wrong with salad, but come on, that's not why someone goes to a steakhouse. We ate and chatted. Klaus reached in his jacket and brought out a packet for me to look it. It was a list of foundations he'd contacted on my behalf and their list of approved universities. If I went to a school not on the list, they would fund a portion of my education, but if I attended somewhere they'd recommended they would give me a full ride. Seemed a little exclusionary to me, but who knew—maybe I would want to go to one of those schools anyway. I decided to look, make decision, _then_ double check it against the list. I didn't want to be biased.

I tried to steal glances at Klaus when he wasn't looking. I didn't have a lot of opportunity to watch him unobserved, you know? I liked the way he held his fork and knife. It was kind of delicate, to be honest. Like this was a ceremony. Maybe for him it was.

He caught me watching him. "What?"

"Nothing. Just looking." I got back to eating. "Thanks for the list, Klaus. It means a lot to me. Any idea if the schools are in my area?"

"Perhaps one or two. Does it matter?"

I paused. "What do you mean?"

"If you found a university out of state, would it truly be so terrible?"

"I don't know about terrible, but I like this city. I want to stick around for a few years."

He chewed slowly. "Would the ginger haired roommate have anything to do with this decision?" His lashes had lowered, as if he were carefully choosing his words.

O-kay. "Maybe,"I allowed. "He's my friend. Maybe my best friend outside of Mystic Falls. I want to keep an eye on him." I shrugged one shoulder. This was a tricky subject, and I could feel the both of us picking through the minefield.

I rubbed my thumb against the hilt of my knife, wondering what he'd say.

"What makes him so special to you, Caroline?"

I laughed a little. "Colby? Well, who else is going to watch movies with me and eat ice cream? He's..." I tried to find the words. "He listens to me, and we talk about boys."

His brow furrowed. "Boys?"

Oh yeah. "Colby's bi. He doesn't have a family anymore because his parents tossed him out when he told them. His sister's name is on the lease, but that's the last thing she did for him. I guess she wasn't too comfortable with it either. I know he's got other friends, but sometimes I think we're more family than that. We were two people alone. Now we're not. That's Colby."

I couldn't read the expression on Klaus' face. It wasn't smooth but it wasn't angry either. _Don't grab the lion by the tail_, I told myself. I shifted in my seat, and then against my better judgment, "Are you worried?"

"Worried?" he repeated, the same way he might have said '_manure_?'. "Have you ever known me to be worried, Caroline?"

I made a face. "I was giving you an out, but if you want to play it like that, no I haven't seen you worried. I've seen you jealous, though. I think it's a pretty safe bet that that's exactly what you are this time." I raised both brows, just daring him to deny it.

His jaw tightened. "I find it...difficult when you exhibit affection towards someone." _Someone other than me. _He didn't say it. He didn't have to.

I put my silverwear down and leaned my elbows on the table. "Don't push too hard, Klaus. Let's just take this one step at a time. We've made promises to each other and we're going to keep them. The rest will come."

His face shuttered. "One can hope."

"Don't be like that."

He turned up his nose aristocratically. "How do you mean?"

I wasn't fooled for a second. "Don't put on the mask. It means you're protecting yourself 'cause you think I'm going to hurt your feelings. You try to be aloof to show that I can't. I like the real Klaus better."

"The real Klaus, as you put it," he said slowly, "is far to vulnerable for my liking."

My lips twitched. "Join the club."

He zeroed in on me. "Are you? Vulnerable?"

"What kind of question is that?"

"I know you can be fearful. Vulnerable, on the other hand, indicates a helplessness I find that I cannot detect in you. There are times, my love, when I would swear that you could recover from anything a'tall."

"Well, that's because you're associating vulnerability with weakness. Really it just means someone can see a part of you that you wouldn't dare show anybody else."

His interest was fully engaged. He watched me intently, like every word I said was a glimpse into a mysterious new world he wanted to navigate. "Such as."

"Are you serious? You really don't know?"

He said nothing.

I could not believe that I was going to just flat out say it, but there was nothing doing. I had to hold my nose and jump in. "Klaus. Did I or did I not freak out in the museum?"

He tilted his head.

"Do you think I do that in front of just anybody? My life depends on me being vigilant. I can't let go. I can't be afraid. I have to have it together so I can move at a moment's notice. The only person in the last two years I could rely on was me, because as much as I love Colby he just doesn't know the whole story. _You_ know the story. _You_ know what terrifies me. You're the only person who does." And in the back of my mind, I trusted him enough to pull me out of the black panic that was swallowing me. "For a minute I didn't have to be strong."

That said I sat back in my chair and looked out over the noisy crowd, a little embarrassed. Which was stupid. The man had read my diary/scrapbook after all. There wasn't much worse I could admit. "So now you know," I said after a minute. "Any other questions?"

"Would you prefer a large wedding, or would an intimate ceremony suffice?"

My head snapped around. "_What?_"

He grinned devilishly.

Sweet relief flooded me. "Oh my god, you jerk! You really had me going." My heart finally restarted.

He tried to contain the smile, but he was failing miserably so he tried to hide it by returning to his food. I could tell he was desperately trying not to laugh.

I leaned my forehead on my hand and shook my head. Klaus with a sense of humor. It was rare, but it was there. At least, I hoped it was a joke. I think it was. For now. That didn't mean I had to take it lying down. "Both."

He paused in the middle of cutting his steak. "Pardon?"

"I want both. Intimate ceremony. Massive party. A classical orchestra and a big band and a modern rock group. I want half classy, half blowout. And I don't want to have to clean up after. Remember that."

His gaze was warm. "Duly noted."

We went home not too long after that. We walked hand in hand from the car, chatting about nothing. He wanted to see me all the way to my door, but when we got to my landing he pulled me to a stop. I was a step above him, wondering what he was up to. He seemed to consider something for a long second, staring at my neck without seeing it.

Then his arms slipped around my waist and pulled me to him. He turned his head and laid it on my chest, right over my heart.

And that's where he stayed. Cuddling me.

It was sweet and scary and profound. Don't make me go into the reasons why. I think those were obvious.

For a second I didn't know what to do. My arms lifted without conscious decision. The next thing I knew I had them wrapped around his shoulders and I was laying my cheek on his crown. He was surprisingly warm. I even got the courage to feather my fingers through the hair on the back of his neck. It made a soft bristly sound.

He sighed.

I chuckled. "You sound like a content cat."

He hummed. "Content is the operative word."

This was nuts. But it was kind of cool. We were going to have a ton of days like today, days when I felt like whacking him over the head with a wooden spoon. There were definitely going to be times when he would probably wish he'd never shown up on my doorstep. I knew that. If this was any indicator of how we'd resolve our issues, though, we had a better chance than I thought.

Two years ago we couldn't have done this. I was a different, more grounded person. Running away had its ups and downs, but I was going to count my improved ability to handle Klaus as one of the ups. "You'd better go," I told him softly, stroking his hair. "It's getting late."

"You could invite me in for a night cap."

"Or I could push you down these stairs for getting fresh."

He chuckled. "I know when I'm beaten."

I leaned back. "Thanks for taking me out to the museum. I enjoyed it."

Klaus was eying me in that way I'd come to associate as purely Klaus. Cat/cream analogy, with a hint of possessive pride. His thumb stroked my sides an instant before his gaze fell to my lips.

He didn't even give me time to meet him in the middle. He surged up and took my mouth like it belonged to him. I guess it did, for all intents and purposes, but experiencing the confident takeover was still startling. His hand slid to cup my cheek, smothering my short gasp, his lips clinging to mine. He angled our heads.

Whoa.

It was like he was making love to my mouth. This was no playful meeting of lips. This was...well, I knew without a doubt what was going through his head right then. It had nothing to do with apologies or teasing.

My eyes slid closed.

It was him that pulled back. Both our chests were rising and falling rapidly. It was a lot hotter in the stairwell than it had been a minute ago. I realized I was clutching his shoulders and slowly let go, wondering what the hell just happened.

He released me and stepped down another step, his lips swollen. His expression was hot enough to catch something on fire. "Goodnight, Caroline."

Only Klaus had the ability to say my name like a benediction.

I, on the other hand, sounded like a dumb blonde. "Uh huh. Night."

I watched him descend slowly, then turning and disappearing down the stairwell. I just barely managed to keep myself from leaning over the bannister to watch him go down the rest of the way.

Oh man. I was in trouble.

I went to my door in a daze, then realized I didn't have my keys. Klaus pulled me out without letting me grab anything. I was forced to knock. A few minutes later Colby opened the door.

I knew right away something was wrong. "What is it?"

Paler than usual, he looked around before pulling me into the apartment by the arm. "Klaus isn't with you?"

"No, he just dropped me off. What's going on?"

He shook his head. There was something so off about him that I started to get scared. "I don't know."

I put my hands on his forearms. "If you don't tell me right now, I'm going to start imagining all sorts of weird stuff. So tell me."

He ran a hand through his hair. "I was taking out the rest of the trash, taking a break, you know? Anyway, I opened the door and there was this note tacked to it."

He pulled me to the couch where all his stuff was scattered, fishing out one piece of paper. "It could mean nothing." He sounded like he was trying to convince himself.

I took the paper slowly. It was just a regular old sheet of computer paper, the words written in a thick, dark marker.

_It's coming for you._

To Colby, the message might have seemed ambiguous, even if his instincts were in an uproar. He didn't have my sense of smell to confirm his suspicions.

The paper smelled like death.

**To Be Continued...**

* * *

**Author's Note: **If you can't access the link from the previous page, simply search for "inertia" "avari" or "klausoline" on scribd and you should be able to find the soundtrack list.

Shorter than usual, but I'm happy for any inspiration at all.

To all who review: Thank you so much. No, my insomnia is unfortunately not better (brought on more by nightmares than a lack of ability to sleep) but at least something productive is coming out of it, right?


	12. Chapter 12

"I can't believe we're doing this," Colby muttered.

I popped out of the dumpster and glared. "I can't believe I'm doing this while you're out there complaining about keeping watch. Now shut it and, you know, _keep watch_."

It was shocking how much trash had accumulated in a matter of hours. I was digging through bags and bags of trash of all types, for once wishing I didn't have a sensitive sense of smell. How the hell was I supposed to find one box out of all this?

It was close to one in the morning and we were trying to be stealthy, using pen flashlights. Colby was standing outside, not doing a very good job of being quiet, and I was the one getting my jeans filthy. Friggin' gender equality.

"I just don't understand why we need to find it, Terra. You said yourself it was bad news."

"Well, I have a feeling that if we don't find out the nature of the beast, we're going to regret it later." I shifted a few bags, thoroughly disgusted at the waste.

"What are you two doing?"

The both of us whipped around to see a figure standing just a few yards away. Colby turned his flashlight. The guy blinked, but my eyesight caught the wolfy glint in his lenses. He was wearing a preppy jacket and he had an undercut hairdo.

Great. A hipster werewolf. Just what I needed at the end of this kind of day. "Can I help you?"

Mr. NatGeo looked at me with amusement. "Actually, I'm here to help you. I'm one of Klaus' detail."

Not a werewolf. A hybrid.

Wait. "Are you..."

He shrugged. "I guess you could call me your new bodyguard. I'm Artie."

This had to be a joke.

He walked closer. I could see the fake prep school patch in the stitching of his breast pocket. Thick glasses flashed in the lights again. "I have to say, it's nice to actually talk to the person I'm protecting."

I closed my eyes and prayed for patience. "I don't believe this."

"Given what I know about you," Artie remarked, "I'd think you'd be expecting it."

The hell of it was that he was right. I opened my mouth to say so, but then I caught the long once over Artie gave Colby, his lips pursed in appreciation.

And Colby was eating it up.

"Hey!" I snapped my fingers. "Paws off."

He lifted a sandy blond brow, but didn't talk back. Colby, on the other hand, turned and gave me a look that clearly read, _Cockblock_.

"What?" I shot back. "We've got other things to take care of, Colby, and so far you suck as a lookout."

"I survived my entire high school education with a squeaky clean record. I'm new to digging through dumpsters, thanks."

Artie ambled closer. Oh yeah, he was checking out Colby hardcore. He barely glanced my way when he asked, "Anything I can assist with?"

Assist. Right. Of the naked roommate variety.

Under normal circumstances I'd be pushing Colby towards Artie with confetti and a heart shaped cake. But Artie was not your run of the mill hipster. He had teeth. Big ones. I didn't think Colby was weak, but I didn't think he was ready to handle the truth either. I squinted at him, suspicion rearing its ugly head. "When exactly did Klaus assign you to me?"

He smiled benignly. "Come on, princess. How about a little trust?"

Colby, bless him, piped up at that. "I think the better question is _why_ he assigned you to her. I know he's rich, but enough to throw that kind of cash around? Without provocation? I don't buy it."

_Freakin' love this guy_, I thought, not for the first time.

Artie's smile grew sexual. Like, I was afraid Colby's boxers were going to combust right then and there. "I love an intelligent man who's not afraid to use big words."

My protective instincts roared to life. "Seriously? Don't make me climb out of this dumpster, Preppy." I glared. If he laid one finger—or tooth—on my roommate, the fur was going to fly. I didn't trust Colby's life to anybody, especially not some hybrid that showed up out of the shadows in the middle of the night.

"Jealous? Klaus isn't going to be happy about that."

"Sweetheart, of the two of us, I'm the one you've got to worry about," I assured him. "Now go away. Tell Klaus we stayed in the apartment all night and nothing happened."

"As I found you in a dumpster, that would imply lying. I think we both know how well that works with Klaus."

Too true. But if he discovered that someone was leaving possibly threatening messages and boxes of questionable origin, we'd all be under lockdown before someone could say, "_Prison Break_." Never mind that it would be extreme. I knew Klaus. "Listen," I said seriously. "We lost something. We're looking for it. No big deal."

"Then why did you call it bad news?"

I shifted. "I didn't-" I stopped. Over the smell of the garbage, I scented it. That sickening odor of death.

I looked down, pointed the pen light. There it was. The box. It was stained with heaven knew what. "Oh," I said, trying to sound casual. "I found it. How lucky."

Colby turned and hooked an arm on the metal lip, leaning over. "Hand it up."

I really, really wished we'd thought to buy rubber gloves, but hindsight and all that. I bent and picked up by the edges. The smell was stronger than ever, but if we stayed just the right distance from Artie we might be able to cover ourselves. He'd only smell garbage. Hopefully.

There was that sliding sound again. I passed it over to Colby, who was able to hold it in one hand. I climbed out as quick as I could, shivering at the untold amount of yuckiness covering my body.

Artie reared back. "What the hell is that smell?"

Dammit. "Nothing." Lame answer.

He was on us in seconds, taking the box without so much as a by-your-leave. He ignored Colby's protest and whipped out something from his back pocket. There was a flick of his wrist and suddenly Artie was holding a wicked-sharp switchblade.

We backed off, my arm covering Colby's stomach automatically.

Artie knelt on the ground and went to work, cutting like a surgeon. Part of me wondered at his bravery. The other part of me thought he was a freakin' idiot for digging into something like that without asking questions first.

He handled that knife like a pro—bringing out a side of hipster scary I've never seen before—and had that box open in less than seconds.

All of us recoiled.

It was a rat. A huge, dead rat, already in a state of decomposition that I won't go into detail with. It was mutilated, sliced in a way that made bile rise in my throat.

And there wasn't a drop of blood to be had.

Artie turned, shivering all over for a second, his face twisted in disgust. "Hate rats." Then he sucked in a deep breath and turned back. "It's drained," he said. He flicked his wrist around and sheathed the blade again. "No puncture wounds though. Whoever did this was human."

Colby stared at him. "What the hell else would it be?"

Artie was a quick one, I'd give him that. "Cat. Animal. Whatever. Nobody picked this up and sent it; it was deliberate. Sending a message." He looked at me. "Want to tell me what's going on, princess?"

Colby stepped forward. "It's me," he said grimly. "I have a crazy ass ex who's just nuts enough to do this." His mouth was a thin hyphen, but I could see how bad this hurt him. The nightmares would be back.

Fury hit me like a ball of fire. I closed my hands into fists, bringing them up and imagining Dan's neck in them. "He's dead. When I get my hands on him, he's going to hurt so bad he'll wish he'd never been born."

He smiled weakly. "Come on, Terra, that's sweet but we both know we don't have any proof it was him. He'll just have you arrested for trespassing or assault or something else equally fucked up."

Now it was Artie and I exchanging looks. Artie, at least, knew that things would go a lot worse for Dan than for me if we were left alone for just five minutes. "You can't tell Klaus," I said. Demanded, really.

His face screwed up. For a second he looked torn. "I want to agree, but..." He shrugged. "You don't lie to that guy."

"I don't want you to lie," I retorted. "But leave out a detail or two. Say you found us digging through the dumpster for something we lost and then we found it. That's the truth."

"And when he wants to know what you lost?"

"Why can't you tell him?" Colby interjected. "Terra, don't lie to the guy. You just started dating."

"Klaus is paranoid and overprotective. Come on, he assigned a guard to me without having a real reason!" That I knew of, but seriously, you just couldn't guess with Klaus. "Trust me. It will be a lot easier on us all if we just don't mention this."

"She's got a point," Artie reluctantly admitted. "Like a cat in a rainstorm, that guy."

I had to think quickly. The plan that formed wasn't brilliant, but it was all I had. I started pulling the ring on my finger off. I loved it. I didn't want to do what I was going to do, but Colby was worth it.

He watched me in concern. "Terra, what are you—no!" He made this sort of half-dive to catch the ring as I pitched it into the dumpster. "Are you crazy? That was your grandmother's!"

"I know," I said grimly. "Let's go in and get it back."

He stared, the enormity of the plan blooming in his head. His jaw worked. Next thing I knew, Colby looped an arm around my shoulders and dragged me into his chest, hugging me like his life depended on it. "You're nuts," he said hoarsely, "but I love you so it's okay."

I wanted to cry at the tears I heard in his voice. A guy like this didn't deserve to be alone in the world, but his parents and family had made a decision he couldn't undo. I wasn't being fake with Klaus; Colby and I were closer than friends and roommates. But I wasn't going to give into the urge, so I sniffed and pushed at him. "Don't get mushy on me, okay? It's late and I want my ring back."

He nodded, eyes a teeny bit glassy in the strange light. "Yeah." Then he sighed. "These are new shoes."

"Tough. I told you what we were up to."

"The love," Artie stated drily, "is thick in the air right now. I may have to watch a chick flick after this. I mean it. Really."

Colby cocked his head. "You're one of those sarcastic dickheads, aren't you."

Artie's answer was a slow, sexy smile. "I'm worth every second, handsome."

"Oh vey," I muttered under my breath. Then, "Make yourself useful, Artie. Give me a boost."

It took ages to find that ring, but in the end we got it and trudged our way back to the apartment. Artie didn't help much beyond practically throwing me into the garbage pile. I could already feel a mild feud building between us. He claimed it was due to his "bodyguard duties" but I knew better. He didn't want to get those pretty duds of his dirty. He even went so far as to order Chinese food while Colby and I were digging.

My only consolation was that he ordered enough for all of us. I didn't think I could eat anything after shifting through that mess, but my growling stomach said otherwise.

We schleped back into the apartment and into our designated bathrooms. I gave Artie the death glare and a pointed finger across the throat behind Colby's back. He was going to stay in that living room or he was mincemeat. No way was I letting him take advantage of my roommate's fragile emotional state.

He arched that sandy brow again. I knew he thought about sticking his tongue out at me, but in the end he stayed where he was. Twenty minutes later we were all at the kitchen table, showered and dressed in clothes that didn't have to be thrown out.

"So," Artie said, clicking his chopsticks in thought. "Ex boyfriend, huh?"

Colby paused. "Yeah."

I chewed my lo mien.

"How long ago did you and this guy break up?"

He was trying to sound professional, but to be honest, I think we all knew he was just fishing for information because he was interested.

I looked at Colby, who was carefully choosing his words. You know, the way people do when they don't want you to think badly about them. "It's been a while. There were some issues after."

I'll say. I glanced at Artie, trying to judge his reaction.

He had a poker face that just couldn't be beat. He'd taken off his jacket and draped it over the back of the chair, revealing a pressed button up with a red bow tie. He'd rolled up his sleeves. He was covered in tattoos. I knew that was somewhat in keeping with the hipster style, but these tattoos were not the artsy kind. They were...how to put it? The kind of stuff that bikers wore. That and the switchblade made for an interesting combination in my hipster/hybrid/definitely gay/possibly bi bodyguard.

I can't say this was how I anticipated my life going this time last week. Klaus swept in and changed everything.

"Left you a lot of dead rats on your doorstep in the past?"

Both Colby and I stiffened. "I don't think I like your tone,"I said. We'd gotten some of that before; people who either thought Colby was making things up or that he'd somehow done something to deserve Dan's wrath.

Artie put down his chopsticks. "Here's the thing, princess. I've been watching you for a few nights now. I trade off with a guy from an evening shift, who trades with a morning shift. Neither of them saw mentioned anything suspicious. I haven't seen anybody carrying a brown package or something big enough to hide it in. Unless this guy had a history of this sort of thing or he lives in the building, the ex story doesn't wash."

We stared at him. "What are you saying? That we're lying?"

He cast me a look. "Princess, please. The rat was real. I'm just telling you that it didn't come from an outside source. It came from inside."

"A neighbor?" Colby didn't sound convinced.

I, on the other hand, was aware that stranger things had happened. Had Colby picked up a stalker? It was a possibility. Unfortunately, so was compulsion.

Once the suspicion took hold it wouldn't let up. People could be compelled to do all sorts of things; had someone been told to leave the package? Why? By whom?

I could see that that's what Artie was trying to say to me.

My appetite disappeared.

"You need to tell Klaus," he concluded, not unkindly.

"I can't,"I protested. "He'll freak."

"He's strong," Artie threw back, "and you and I both know there's stuff up his sleeve no one's ever seen before. He can protect _both_ of you." He jerked his head toward Colby. "Isn't his safety worth a little discomfort?"

Oh, using my roommate against me? That was playing dirty. Suddenly it was me putting the chopsticks down. I scooted back in my chair and left the kitchen, barricading myself in my room. I didn't even worry about leaving Artie and Colby alone. I had a decision to make.

I picked up my phone and hugged it to my chest, pacing back and forth. To tell or not to tell? I wanted open communication between us, but Klaus could go to extreme's at a second's notice. What if he tried to separate me and Colby? What if he tried to put us in a castle somewhere remote?

Well, that last part wouldn't be so bad. I just didn't want to be put in a room that I couldn't get out of again. I'd had enough of being imprisoned for one lifetime, thanks.

It was just one human. Maybe. I could handle that myself. I didn't have to run to Klaus for everything little thing. It's not like I couldn't open a pickle jar alone. I could figure out what to do with a troublesome ex boyfriend without Klaus going postal.

But that wasn't exactly fair, was it? If it was such a tiny problem, why couldn't I just tell him about it?

I let my head fall back and groaned. The truth was that I was afraid it wasn't just some easy to solve problem. I didn't have any enemies, but Klaus did. Lots of them, and most with a supernatural ability of one kind or another. Did I really want to let myself get tangled back up in all that again?

Did I have a choice? Supernatural mumbo jumbo just got worse the longer you ignored it. I didn't want to get caught with my pants down.

There was no avoiding it.

I had to tell him.

I unlocked the phone and dialed his number like the condemned calling the executioner. He picked up on the second ring. "What's wrong?"

"What makes you think something is wrong?" _Smooth, Caroline_. "Okay, scratch that, I know. It's, uh, 1:45 in the morning and I'm calling you. Of course something is wrong. Look, don't freak, okay?"

"Caroline."

One word. That's all it took. "Okay, you know earlier when you came and saw Colby? I was throwing a package away that someone left on our doorstep. While we were gone there was a note pinned to our door, so we went to find the package and there was a dead rat in it." I paused.

Silence. Total, utter, absolute silence.

Not good.

"So Artie said that it probably isn't Colby's ex boyfriend but someone in the building, and now I'm calling you to tell you because you need to know."

The silence continued.

xxxxx

My grip threatened to crush the mobile.

I blinked and inhaled a sharp breath into starving lungs, scraping together my composure with every precise ounce of my will. "Pack your bags. I am coming."

"And Colby?"

I did not give one flying fuck about the ginger roommate. "Bring him. He has half an hour to pack, or he will be left behind."

There was plain relief in her voice. "Okay. Thanks."

I moved to cut off the call.

"Klaus?"

I returned the telephone to my ear.

"I mean it," she said softly. "Thank you."

I nodded, though she had no way of seeing it. "Half an hour, Caroline." With that I disconnected, carefully lowering my arm to rest at my side as I stared unseeing at the lamp. I thought of the high spirits with which I left Caroline's company a few hours earlier. I thought of the muted promises in the museum and the soul baring she treated me to over dinner. My determination to win her. The kisses. The tremulous possibility of a trusting relationship developing between us.

All of that was being threatened.

_Caroline was being threatened. _

I swiped out a hand with a roar of rage, the lamp shattering against the opposite wall. Not nearly satisfied with the carnage I picked up the sturdy table beneath with one hand and tossed it after. Wood cracked and split. Plaster feel. A hole appeared in the wall. I was left with a heaving chest and so much pent up violence I shook with it. I wanted destruction. I wanted desecration. I wanted blood and justice. No one harmed Caroline. The mere thought filled me with an unholy fear and fury. There was no time to waste. I had to get to her. I had to see her safe and in my arms.

I yanked my jacket from a chair and strode out of the room, already connecting another call and ordering the car about. It was there in minutes. I bit out instructions and sat back. They knew better than to engage me. They pushed every speed limit to the max and then proceeded to break one law after the other, my glower spurring them on. We arrived much sooner than expected in Caroline's complex, but much too late for my taste. I was out of the car nearly before it stopped, striding up the path and taking the stairs two at a time to reach her floor.

I had called Artie from the car to apprise him of our arrival. He oh-so-efficiently opened the door an instant before I reached it. Instead of entering, I yanked him out by the collar and quickly pressed him to the doorjamb. I pitched my voice too low for humans or Caroline to hear, speaking quickly so as not to keep long from what I really wanted.

"Allow me to make something clear to you, Artie. If harm should come to her, your life will be worthless. If you need proof, I suggest you permit an errant bruise to show up on her skin. See how I react. And just to drive the point home—you know how dangerous I am under normal circumstances. Imagine what losing something precious to me would do."

He listened, his arms out in surrender. "I convinced her to call you. Don't I get a little credit for that?"

"Marginally. It is only because of your loyalty and various skills that I am not taking my rage out on you. You've served me well. I only wish to impart to you the seriousness of your charge. Have I made my point?"

The former street urchin had always shown significantly less fear than the other hybrids. Significantly less gratitude as well. He was smarter than the average, more prepossessed, and yet he didn't have an ounce of ambition to go along with his leadership skills. He would make a superior second in command one day.

If he lived that long.

"I get it, alright? Caroline must be protected. I was on it. She got herself slimed, not shot. I even fed her. I think the brownie points are piling up here, personally."

I glared at my cheeky little apprentice, not at all amused by his flippant attitude.

"Klaus." Suddenly he was earnest. "I get it."

That remained to be seen, but I heard Caroline in the distance and had no choice but to release him. I went in without another glance. She and the redhead were pulling their cases into the living room. I paused. "What's all this?"

The roommate had one large suitcase and a backpack. Caroline had too large suitcases and a duffel. She looked a little embarrassed but relieved at my presence, a combination that soothed my male pride somewhat. I drank her in, looking for any sign that not all was as it should be.

"We don't know how long we'll be gone. I have to work." She patted the top of one suitcase. "It's got everything I need in there to keep my projects going."

And the others? I was hesitant to ask. According to rumor, Caroline skipped Mystic Falls with barely the clothes on her back. Clearly she was not aiming for the nomadic style again. This appeared to be the sort of packing one did when switching residences. That pleased me, taming a bit of the anger that roiled in my chest.

The roommate, on the other hand...

He shifted from foot to foot beneath my regard. "School books," he said, lifting the strap of the backpack from his shoulder for emphasis. He tapped his suitcase with a foot. "Clothes. If it's a big deal, I'll find a hotel or a friend to crash with."

"Don't," Caroline suddenly barked, surprising me. Yet it wasn't myself she was glaring at, it was...Artie?

He had his mouth open, as if to say something, but slowly closed it and favored my lady with a mischievous smirk. "You can't be in the room forever, princess."

"But I _can_ invest in a good shock collar."

"Terra," Colby half-groaned, half-moaned.

"As fascinating as all this is," I interrupted coldly, "I suggest we repair to the car and discuss the situation in better surroundings. Help with the bags," I added to Artie.

The grin that split his face was blinding. "My pleasure." He had Colby's suitcase in hand before anyone could blink, making a show of flexing his muscles. "This way, handsome."

Even I, as old as I am, had no words for the puppy dog devotion that eclipsed Colby's surprise in short order. "I can do it," he protested feebly.

"And shortchange myself of the chance to impress you? No way."

Caroline growled. It was a very sexy, illuminating sound. The moment the two boys left the room she turned on me. "Did you pick Artie on purpose?"

I frowned. "When I received your call, I confess I did not envision this to be our conversation."

"Seriously, are you trying to set Colby up with Tall, Blond, and Hipster?"

"Caroline, my love, do I look like the sort that would take on a Lonely Hearts escapade as a side hobby?"

She eyed me, hands on her hips. "Did you know he was gay?"

"Darling, I would have to be blind to miss it. One cannot paint Artie as the shy type." It was my turn to be suspicious. "Why does it bother you so?" I did not bother to hide my jealousy. She was aware of it; attempting to minimize it would be fruitless.

"Because he is a hybrid, Klaus! I don't want Colby to get any deeper into our world than he already is. He deserves to live a normal life."

I tilted my head. Our world. More and more Caroline included us together, as if we were a unit.

Exactly what I wanted.

For that reason I chose to let my jealousy fizzle out, stepping closer to put my hands on her forearms. "Like it or not, Colby is already involved. If you want me to protect him, we have to keep him close. He might see things we cannot hide. You can either trust him to handle it, or we have take different measures." I leaned in, rubbing her flesh lazily, absorbing the feel of her. She was safe. She was with me. That had to be enough for the moment.

She was mutinous. "I don't like it when you're right."

That coaxed a smile from me, despite myself. "Love, no one likes it when I'm right." I became solemn. "How are you?"

She relaxed. "I'm fine," she admitted. "Worried, slightly freaked, but fine. Thanks for coming."

I searched her face. "Was it ever in doubt?"

The corners of her lips lifted. "You know, it never once occurred to me that you wouldn't be here. The question as always how quick you would be." She arched a brow. "And how massively out of control. But you're doing good. I'm surprised."

If she only knew. "We are going home," I told her quietly, firmly. "You will unpack your things, and that is where you will stay. I will get to the bottom of the situation, and all will be well. I promise." I let her go with great difficulty and reached for her bags.

"Hey Klaus?"

I paused.

She had her thinking expression on. "Come here." She opened her arms.

I straightened slowly, frowning. "What are you doing?"

She rolled her eyes. "It's called offering a hug. Now come here."

"Caroline-"

"This is a limited time offer."

"I am not-"

"Three." She stepped closer.

"If you are suggesting-"

"TWOone!" She threw herself at me. I caught her automatically, and she wrapped her arms around my torso and squeezed with a significant amount of vampire force, her head tucked beneath my chin. I held her, bewildered by her behavior, yet gradually my heartbeat slowed and I relaxed in her embrace.

"There," she said after a minute. "I think that's good. We both needed that." She tried to step back, but I resisted. "Or maybe you more than me."

There were a thousand things I needed more than she. "Do you know why love is a vampire's greatest weakness, Caroline?" I asked as I stroked her hair.

"Why?"

"Because it can be lost, and that possibility is a stark reminder of how truly bleak an existence can be. It drives us to depths we never imagined before." I felt as though I were confessing my soul to her, allowing her to see how frightening I found the situation.

And how frightening I could be.

She reached up and patted my cheek. "I'm here, Klaus. Now let's go home."

There was a level of hesitation in her voice that I was not immune to. She found the thought of my home intimidating. Perhaps even my level of devotion, in some degree, equally so.

No matter. We would move forward.

Always forward.

I could not allow anything else.

**To Be Continued...**

* * *

**Author's Note:**

The insomnia has worn off, thank goodness. Thanks for everyone's concern and suggestions, as well as all the reviews!

What do you think of Artie? I kinda dig him. I don't plan my stories ahead of time. I just sit down and write one day, whatever comes into my head, and when he showed up I was pleasantly surprised.


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